Journal 3 in 2003
Bezugspunkte: Europa / Israel / USA

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Dominique Tomasov Blinder
Who does Our Heritage Belong to ?

Irritating Experiences with the City Government of Barcelona

I grew up in Argentina until I finished architecture school. After travelling for a couple of years I decided to spend some time in New York. Twelve years later I moved to Spain.

Although I had the opportunity to choose from very diverse and rich Jewish options before, it was in Barcelona where, for the first time in my life, I became interested in taking responsibility for my Judaism.

As a South American Jew, I suddenly realized that the country that was to be my new home had kicked out the Jews five centuries before and also colonized the "new world," trying to shape it in its own image. This triggered my interest in Jewish heritage, without knowing, then, where exactly it would lead me.

In 1997 our congregation ATID was founded, the first liberal one in Spain. Pretty soon I became aware of how little is known about our people, and became enthusiastic learning from Mr. Iaffa, an Argentinean Jew who was trying to recover what is left of Barcelona's oldest Major Synagogue from the Middle Ages. A year later I had decided to design a very comprehensive commented tour of the CALL, the Old Jewish Quarter, talking a "silenced Jewish voice from a Jewish perspective".

Most of the information about Jewish life during the Middle Ages comes from archival royal documents. This is how we know of the "old Jewish cemetery" on the Montjuic (mount of the Jews), mentioned in a 10th century document. But our own sources tell us that we were well established in Barcelona already in the 9th century. The Seder ben Amram Gaon (first siddur in our history), was written in Babylonia "at the request of the scholars in Barcelona" – around the year 870.

The kehilah was destroyed in 1391 when, after a series of pogroms across the country, Barcelona was attacked, properties were lost and most of the 4,000 inhabitants were killed, converted or escaped. In 1492, the few Jews that remained in town were forced to leave.

Jewish life did not start again until the first part of the 20th century, and it took more than five centuries to equal the figures from before the expulsion. While in the Middle Ages it was, although a minority, about 10 to 15 percent of the total demographics, today it hardly exceeds 5/10,000. Our congregations are not only very young but small, with their own survival problems.

Barcelona, with around 4,000 Jews, is the city in Spain with the greatest Jewish diversity: Orthodox, Liberal and Chabad. The latest immigration and the existence of a liberal synagogue affected our way of expressing our identity, making us more open towards society, confronting old prejudice and ignorance. With this growth came interfaith dialogue, lobbying in the media, dedication of a Shoah Memorial, the yearly International Jewish Film Festival, recovering the oldest Synagogue, my project Urban Cultours, creations in the arts, etc.

We have gone a long way since the Middle Ages, especially in terms of respect for diversity. In Barcelona, where a rich, remote past and a lively Jewish present meet, we could use another opportunity to debate those pending issues that are still so current.

In the 21st century we face new challenges. They include: to make ourselves more visible to society, to express our concerns with a single and clear voice, to participate in the management of our heritage and to lead local institutions to integrate present Jews in their actions and initiatives around Jewish history.

In the non-Jewish world there is a growing enthusiasm in reviving Jewish heritage. The Red de Juderias is a network created to that effect and includes, so far, a dozen cities. Barcelona will be the first member that has Jewish presence.

Barcelona's city government also has been planning to restore its Jewish quarter. Last September 7, European Day of Jewish Culture, they presented a very ambitious project to the public. Not only were we not involved in its elaboration, but there was no mention of a desire that we also feel identified with the efforts and results.

”There are in our city, justified historic material elements" and "there should be a Center of Documentation on Judaism similar to what the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme in Paris has", were some of their reasons for the proposal. And we wonder if such an institution should not be created from within the Jewish world for the development of a living culture.

What good are the objects without their human side?
"We do not have to be Jewish to recover the Jewish legacy" or "this is part of our history", is often heard. Although questionable, it is definitely inappropriate to handle Jewish history as if dealing with the Roman. Academics are concerned with being true to the documents; city officers look to attract the public and activate tourism; tour guides learn to repeat a standard script. They do not refer to Jewish life and culture as a continuum, but in the past, as an extinct culture; they talk about relics, museum pieces, collectibles.

Who will provide the contents and the meaning? Where would "Jewish spirit" come from? But, of course, they do not forget to seek important funding in the Jewish international world. Do we have to support these initiatives?

Can we trust an administration that a year ago has excavated a large portion of the old Jewish Cemetery? 557 bodies were found in the land where our ancestors rest. Some of them may have died in one of the frequent attacks during their long permanence in this city. The local congregations were not consulted or informed, before, during or after. The work was carried out in the tightest secrecy, assuming rights that they believed themselves to have.

We hope that there is still an opportunity for the Jewish community to join in the design and management of the project and to recover together the local Jewish heritage. This could guarantee the linkage with the present, will allow all voices to be expressed and foster a true socio-cultural dialogue. But so far, Barcelona’s Jewish community learns about this only through the media!

More than 500 years ago, our people and its traces were deliberately eradicated, the artefacts passed on to private hands or were buried in time.

To whom does this heritage belong? What will happen with the sepher, the books, the objects from daily life and rituals, the tablets that had been found and collected through the times?

To whom is it meaningful? Who will explain what it represents and who is to decide about its use and destination?

We have a lot of questions and we may know the answer. But how can an absolute minority make government agents understand that these issues must be handled with sensibility? What can we do for our concerns to be considered?

It can be dangerous if the tradition and heritage of a minority people is considered of "cultural interest", when it is appropriated without authentic involvement of its members and there are still historic mistakes to be repaired. It becomes a poor simplification that ends up dissolving the real essence.

They do have the "stones and artefacts", the political structure and the resources to do it, they can take care of history and its display. But it is obviously our responsibility to rebuild and revalue our past as part of our present identity.

Nobody else can do that for us.

Dominique Tomasov Blinder is an American/Argentinean architect living in Barcelona. Through Urban Cultours project she offers the only programs in Spain about our past from a local Jewish perspective. www.urbancultours.com / info@urbancultours.com