Sefarad
The first time I visited a Jewish quarter was in Toledo and it was by chance. I was amazed by its network of narrow, winding and zigzag streets. Later I discovered that not only Toledo but many other Spanish cities and towns hide a Jewish past. Jewish people who left a cultural heritage that we can still enjoy today, and is greater than we could imagine. The Jewish community was very important in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages and even today, more than five centuries after their expulsion, we can see and admire the cultural Jewish heritage: streets, squares and monuments, including synagogues, cemeteries and ritual Jewish baths. Walking around the Spanish Jewish quarters is a journey in time and history of what the Spanish cities and towns were during the Middle Ages. It was a kaleidoscope of people where Jews, more than a thousand years after their arrival on the Iberian Peninsula, had developed their culture, practicing their own customs and religion. The coexistence was not always easy, resulting in confrontations and mistrust, until the Decree of Expulsion in 1492. A decree that expelled the Jews from Spain but could not erase the great cultural heritage that Jewish people left.