Sephardim Museum , Toledo

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The Sephardim Museum, in the city of Toledo, is located in the Caballeros de Calatrava Convent, attached to the El Tránsito Synagogue. It is the National Museum of Hispano-Judaism and the Sephardim and houses a great many vestiges of Jewish culture.

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Contact address for Sephardim Museum

C/ Samuel Leví, s/n, 45002
Toledo (Toledo)

Phone: 925223665

Fax: 925215831

Email: museo.msefardi@mcu.es

Website: www.museosefardi.net /...

Location

In the old El Tránsito or Samuel-ha-Levi Abulafia Synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter. Access by Urban Bus: Line 12

Art style: Mudejar.

How to get there: Road transport

The Sephardim Museum is made up of five rooms that display aspects of the history, religion, customs and manners of Spain’s Jewish and Sephardic past.

HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE (ROOM I)
This first room introduces the visitor to the historic, geographic and cultural context of the origins of the Jewish people, in the Ancient Near East, which, according to the scriptures, is the origin of traditions that still exist in Jewish people’s daily lives today. There are archaeological artefacts dated between 2000 B.C. and the 1st century A.D., as well as a wide variety of cultural artefacts pertaining to Jewish beliefs and customs, and what it means to be Jewish. Of particular interest are a Torah (Law or sacred book of Judaism, made up of the Pentateuch) and a series of liturgical and synagogal objects.

THE JEWS IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA (ROOMS II & III)
The first testimonies from the material culture of the Jewish presence in Spain: their arrival on the Iberian Peninsula, life in Roman and Visigoth times, developments during Al-Andalus and under the Christian Kings in the 13th to 15th centuries, the converts, The Inquisition and the expulsion in 1492.
In the Northern patio, in a kind of necropolis, there is an exhibition of Jewish headstones from all over Spain. In the East patio are the archaeological remains of what were perhaps the public baths of the old Jewish quarter of Toledo and part of the old hejal (principal wall) of the synagogue are preserved. Both patios are a magnificent place to stop for a rest.

THE SEPHARDIM (ROOM V: WOMEN’S GALLERY)
The place name Sefarad appears in the Bible in verse 19 of the only chapter of Obadiah; whatever the meaning in the Biblical text, in the Hebrew language since the Middle Ages, and later in other cultured languages, it has been used to mean Spain or the Iberian Peninsula in General, and Jewish Spain in particular. The term sefardí in the Spanish language (as defined in the dictionary of the Royal Academy) means Jew native to Spain. The use of Sephardim is also quite often used to describe Jews of the medieval Sefarad, according to the meaning of the word sefardi in the Hebrew language.

JUDAISM AS A WAY OF LIFE (ROOM V: WOMEN’S GALLERY).
As in other cultures, Judaism does not permit women to follow the liturgy from the Main Prayer Hall. Part of the original plasterwork decoration has been preserved in this space, there are also various display cases related to the daily life (birth, education, principal festivals, death..,) of the Sephardim.