10 July 2009

Tarragona´s forgotten Jewish community

Far less known than the Jews of Girona or Barcelona, the Jewish community of Tarragona is the oldest, going back to Roman times. Under Moorish rule Tarragona was known among Muslims as a Jewish city and Tortosa or Turtūšah in Arabic - a more flourishing place than Tarragona at this time - was the birthplace of great Jewish minds such as Menahem ben Saruk (poet and lexicographer) and Abraham ben Jacob (physician-cum-traveller).
After the Christian conquest of these lands there is evidence of Jewish communities not just in Tortosa and Tarragona - where in the 13th-14th century perhaps 15% of the population was Jewish - but also in Valls, Montblanc, Falset, Santa Coloma de Queralt and l´Aleixar. Jews settled in a specific quarter within the walled city, close to the castle or the residence of the count´s or king´s representative. In Tarragona the Jewish Call occupied a narrow labyrinth of streets and alleyways between the old eastern perimeter of the Provincial Forum and the city walls, in between the current-day C/Talavera and C/Granada down to the Plaza del Rei. In Tarragona, as elsewhere in Catalonia and Aragon, the age of Jewish splendour ended around 1391, when antisemitism and persecution forced most to emigrate (to Rousillon and other places) or to convert to Christianity. Samuel Benveniste, a well-known 14th-century physician and translator, was one of the many Sephardic Jews who made a significant contribution to scientific development in medieval Catalonia.
Centuries of wilful destruction and neglect have left us with very little evidence of the Jews of Tarragona. There are some epigraphic remains (kept in the Diocesan Museum, the Praetorian Tower and in the College of Industrial Engineers) and some documentary evidence. Evidence in stone is the Portella dels Jueus - a cyclopic gate in the city wall for the exclusive use of the city´s Jews -, Jewish funerary stones and the remnants of an enigmatic building known locally as ca la Garsa (now property of the city council). Enigmatic because the precise function of ca la Garsa (Plaza dels Angels, 23 - see picture at top) within the Jewish Call is still unknown. It was likely a public building of some sort, perhaps a hospice or hospital. Excavations now going on will hopefully tell us more. Tarragona´s synagogue was likely located on the spot now occupied by the Iglesia de la Trinidad on the Plaza del Rei. In Valls, Montblanc and Santa Coloma de Queralt there is still a Carrer dels Jueus or a Carrer del Call reminding us of the forgotten Jewish chapter of these places.
And then there is the evidence of oral history and family history. A seminar held in November 2008 in Tarragona under the title ´Añorada Tarragona´ put the spotlight on the journey, in time and space, of the descendents of the Cavaller or Caballero family, Jews from Falset, as well as the stories of the Catalan Jews who emigrated to Rome, Sicily, Sardinia, Smirna and Tessaloniki (see Diari de Tarragona, 4 Dec 2008). ´Taragano´, the surname of quite a few Jewish families even nowadays - a family of Jewish diplomats in the Ottoman Empire carried this name - may also point in the direction of the Jewish presence in Tarragona´s past. As any other place, but perhaps even more so here in this corner of Europe, the current population is a strange mix, a blending of Iberians, Celts, Romans, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Moors, Sephardic Jews and Norman and Germanic blood...
Much of the material for this post comes from ´Shalom Tarragona´, a book published in 2007 by Arola and written by Francesc Valls Calçada, with photographs by Pep Escoda.

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