Museum Archives | Page 7 of 12 | World Jewish Travel

Jewish Interpretation Center of Sevilla

The Seville Jewish Quarter Visitors Centre offers visitors an exhibition about the Jews who lived in the quarter and the changes which took place from the Middle Ages up to the present day. It also talks about about the Jews who lived here and who had to abandon this land, about Jewish women and the Diaspora, and their culture, customs, songs, sayings and storytelling.

The Permanent Exhibition includes many manuscripts, some of which date from the times of the Inquisition, and the symbolic painting of the “Expulsion of the Jews from Seville”, with a number of different legends about famous figures and places of the Jewish Quarter of Seville.

Archaeological Museum of Cordoba

The Archaeological Museum of Cordoba is one of the most complete archaeological museums in Spain. It is located at Jerónimo Páez Square right in the heart of the city’s old town, near the Mosque-Cathedral. It occupies a palace from the Renaissance which belonged to the Páez de Castillejo family. Despite the fact that the building conserves some structures from the Late Middle Ages as it was a Mudejar house, it was remodelled in the 16th century. It was bought in 1496 by the Páez de Castillejo and it is the latter who undertook the Renaissance remodelling, highlighting the main stairs and the doorway. Subsequently, between 1944 and 1959, after being used for various purposes, the palace was adapted by Félix Hernández to accommodate the Archaeological Museum which was set up therein in 1960. The museum was extended in 2011 with a new building housing offices, laboratories and a permanent exhibition.

Sefarad House (Casa de Sefarad)

Directly facing the synagogue, casa de Sefarad, or the House of Memory is a 14th century property which is linked, according to various sources, to the Jewish temple. The coloured circles of the courtyard chapter are one of the original elements of this building, restored conscientiously to recreate the spirit of the Cordoban Jews. The Sepharad House, home of memory, is a private initiative dedicated to the interpretation and promotion of Sephardi heritage. Now, the Casa de la Memoria (House of Memory) is a cultural centre where concerts and acts of many kinds are staged and it boasts a specialised library and shop where you can find a wide range of Jewish-related objects.

History Museum of Barcelona

The Museum of the History of Barcelona (Catalan: Museu d’Història de Barcelona, MUHBA) is a history museum that conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the historical heritage of the city of Barcelona, from its origins in Roman times until the present day. The museum’s headquarters are located on Plaça del Rei, in the Barcelona Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic). It also manages several historic sites all around the city, most of them archaeological sites displaying remains of the ancient Roman city, called Barcino in Latin. A few other historical sites in the museum date to the medieval times, including the Jewish quarter and the medieval royal palace called the Palau Reial Major. The rest are contemporary, among them old industrial buildings and sites related to Antoni Gaudí and the Spanish Civil War.

The museum was inaugurated on 14 April, 1943; its principal promoter and first director was the historian Agustí Duran i Sanpere. It belongs to the City Council of Barcelona, as part of the Culture Institute. The Museum of the History of Barcelona has several heritage sites spread all around the city. Most of them are archaeological sites displaying remains of the ancient Roman city, called Barcino. Others refer to medieval times and the rest cover the contemporary city, including old industrial buildings and sites related to Gaudí and the Spanish Civil War.

El Call Interpretation Centre

The new El Call Interpretation Center is located in Manuel Ribé square, near Sant Domènec del Call Street. It is built on a former Jewish mansion and has multiple uses; it functions as an information and welcoming centre, a place for cultural activities, and a point of interest for tourist who visit the Jewish Quarter. The center showcases everyday objects from the 13th and 14th centuries, found during archaeological excavations in the area. Some of the more noteworthy exhibits include Khanukiyyes, dishes with Hebrew characters, and a facsimile of the illustrated manuscript, the Sarajevo Haggadah, produced in the Catalan region, which depicts 15th-century scenes, and two tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions.

The Centre also holds walking tours of the Barcelona Jewish Quarter for those who are interested in learningm more about the city’s Jewish history. Other activities held at the center include lectures on Jewish history and culture, food tastings of Catalan-Jewish cuisine, Jewish storytelling sessions and summer school activities.

El Call – Jewish Quarter

The Jewish Quarter in Barcelona, known as El Call, dates back to the 11th century and refers to the entire set of streets occupied by the Jews. During this time, the municipal authorities had no jurisdiction over the Call as it was directly accountable to the King or the royal bailiffs. From the 14th century, restrictive ordinances for the Jews were issued referring solely to situations or actions outside the Call quarter.

The medieval Jewish Quarter takes up a relatively small area of narrow streets tucked away behind the Cathedral in the oldest part of the city centre. After the 1391 pogroms, the area was largly abandoned even years before the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

The Jewish Quarter contains two ancient mikvehs, historic synagogues including the Shlomo Ben Adret Synagogue, which is believed to be one of the oldest synagogues in Europe, as well as the MUHBA El Call museum where one can learn about the Jewish history of Barcelona.

In the middle ages, el Call or Jewish quarter of Barcelona was the largest in the entire Catalan-Aragonese Crown and one of the most important in southern Europe. Initially it occupied the northwestern quarter of the old urban fabric of Barcino. In the more peripheral areas, both Christians and Jews lived together, and the limits were not entirely precise.

The oldest documentary mention of the Jewish presence in Barcelona dates from 875-877, although it is assumed that the Jews settled during the first centuries of the Christian era. At the end of the 11th century, the Callo or Jewish quarter had already been formed. It was a closed and delimited neighborhood, the territory of which was excluded from the parish network of the city. Within the quarter there were synagogues, ritual baths and other institutions that guaranteed the practice of Judaism.

Cemetery of Selestat

In 1622, when no Jewish family lived in Sélestat, the Jews of the communities or Wintzenheim, Ribeauvillé and Bergheim no longer had any necropolis near Colmar, the city councilors refusing the extension. Also these Jews bought land around Sélestat, in the canton known as Burner, which later took the name of Paradiesweg to establish a rest area. The cemetery (named the “Paradies”), with an area of nearly 4 hectares and comprising around 4000 graves, was created around 1622.
The oldest part has been listed as an historic monument since May 10, 1995. Located to the north of the city, it was opened by the Jewish communities of Bergheim, Ribeauvillé, and Dambach-la-Ville, then enlarged several times over the centuries, in 1699, 1719, 1733 respectively. the limits: one of them bears the inscription “Bel Ain”, which means house of eternity.
In the last century, a fence wall pierced with two doors was installed; on the central portal, we can see two broken poppy branches: the poppy symbolizing sleep, and the broken branches death.
The oldest identified stele is that of Rabbi Moïse de Dambach, dating from 1666. Many Jewish personalities of the 17th century rest in this cemetery, in particular the niece of Karl Marx, Rose Blum, as well as Raisel See, heroine of the French Revolution. native of Bergheim, as well as Moïse Meier, president and general representative of the Jews of the province.
There is also the tomb of Léopold Weiller, father of Lazare Weiller, who was one of the founders of television, and of the first automobile cab company (the ancestor of taxis). He was a senator for Bas-Rhin.
This cemetery makes it possible to observe over a continuous series of changes in Jewish funerary art in the 18th century mainly, through the decorative treatment of the stelae which evolves from a fairly stripped Renaissance style to a more baroque art around the middle of the century. (Dictionary of Historical Monuments Alsace – sept. 1995)
During the Nazi Occupation, the cemetery passed into the hands of the authorities. It is the mayor, who, in 1979, ceded for the symbolic franc, the cemetery to the Jewish community.

Photo credit: Oie blanche, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Harbin Museum of Jewish History and Culture

Harbin Museum of Jewish History and Culture is a museum commemorating the Jewish diaspora in Harbin, China from early 1900s to 1950s. It is located at the former site of the New Synagogue of Harbin (哈尔滨犹太新会堂). The museum features documents, photographs, films, and personal items documenting the lives of some of the more than 20,000 Jewish residents in Harbin. The first floor of the museum shows photographs, paintings of several buildings in Harbin constructed by Jews in the first half of the 20th century. The exhibitions on the second and third floors present education, industry, art and music of Jews in Harbin.

Austrian Jewish Museum and Wertheimer Family Synagogue

The Austrian Jewish Museum was very fortunate to be able to settle in a historic building of the former Jewish quarter of Eisenstadt. The museum is located in a place where a notable Jewish community settled for more than 250 years. The museum was founded in 1972 as the first Jewish museum in Austria after 1945. During a visit, you can not only see the former private synagogue and the museum’s collections, but also catch a glimpse of the old houses of the Jewish quarter and the two Jewish cemeteries.

State Museum of Burgenland

The Sándor Wolf Memorial Room is located in this museum and was established in honour of Sándor Wolf, who is considered to be the founding father of the State Museum of Burgenland. Lore Lizbeth Waller was a grandniece of Sándor Wolf. She talks about her summer stays in this house at the video channel of the Research Society Burgenland (http://www.forschungsgesellschaft.at/interviews/eisenstadt.html).

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