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JEWISH HERITAGE programs & tours in BARCELONA
in Spanish, English, French, Catalan and Italian

I personally offer two different private or semi-private programs.

1) Walk in the Old Jewish Quarter of Barcelona - 2 hours

The Call, old Jewish quarter, is a small area within the Gothic quarter.
We meet in front of the Cathedral to start a circuit including these streets: Call, Sant Honorat, Sant Domenec, Marlet, Fruita, Sant Ramon, Sant Felip Neri and Sant Sever. Meeting in front of the Cathedral to see, among others:

• Major synagogue, two rooms in a small basement from the 16 century, opened to the public as a small museum.
  Room two -in the same location where part of the women's section used to be- displays a collection of interesting artifacts (though from Central Europe): a menorah, by Ferran Aguiló and a stained glass window by Maximo Iaffa are the most important local art pieces.
  Major Synagogue is available for private ceremonies.
• Visitors' Center, an annex of the City History Museum with a great collection of objects, images and historic information.
• En route, we will virtually pull information from the stones ... and will discuss how urban legends were started.

To understand the relations that the Jewish community had with the established powers, we walk to the area around the Cathedral and the Kings's palace.

• Tablets were used for construction of the Lieutenant Palace. A few can be seen in the façade, some are displayed in the City Museum, dating to the Middle Ages.
• The Inquisition, established in 1480, had offices in a wing of the Royal Palace in Barcelona. Its emblem can still be seen on the front wall.

Menorah in Major Synagogue

Re purposed
fragment of matsevah

This first part of this program is a visit to Montjuïc (Mount of Jews). It is the city's central park, named after the Jewish cemetery since the 9th century. On the same hill there is a very moving Memorial to the victims of the Shoah. These stops offer a great opportunity to learn about Jewish life all along the 20 century.
Meeting at your hotel, transportation provided.

• Ancient Jewish cemetery on Montjuïc, declared a landmark site in 2009 at the petition of the local congregations and the civil society. After a long research, co-directed by Dominique Tomasov Blinder, you can now read about the Boundaries of Middle Ages Jewish Cemetery of Barcelona on Montjuïc

• SHOAH Memorial, in an old quarry on Montjuïc.
  Dedicated by the local Jewish institutions in 1995, 50th anniversary of the end of WWII. There are three memorials in Spain, and this is the most spectacular and moving.
  

The second part of the program is the Walk in the Jewish quarter described above.

Area of old Jewish cemetery

Shoah Memorial
1945·1995

• Exchange experiences with the local Jewish community.
• Participate in shabbat services
• Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Tu Bishvat, Purim, Passover, Shavuot and Sukot
• Have your children participate in local activities and camps (on request)
• Come to the International Jewish Film Festival organized every year
• Visit Call Barcelona wines & books,in the Jewish quarter. Only place of its kind in Spain, a bookstore and cultural place with monthly events.
• Meet Jewish artists, poets, musicians, photographers, designers
• Take a cooking class and enjoy a Sephardic meal prepared by yourself