These are some of the examples that the poet and Hebrew scholar Manuel Forcano shared with us last April in the museum\u2019s Gothic Art galleries. He spoke to us about the persistence of the Jewish legacy in Catalonia, despite the fact that the Jews were expelled more than 500 years ago,<\/strong> and he guided us through the evidence of it that has survived in art.<\/p>\n Moment of the conference of Manuel Forcano<\/p><\/div>\n According to some sources, the history of the Jews in Catalonia dates back to the first century AD with the arrival of the first communities. Whether it was then or later, what is beyond doubt is that the Jews settled in Catalonia before Catalonia and Catalans existed as such. Their presence was solid and stable. It spread to almost all parts of the country and lasted for practically 1,500 years.<\/strong> It was hardly ever, however, a calm existence: from the moment when Christianity became the hegemonic official religion, the Jews were viewed with profound suspicion. In most periods they were tolerated at best, and even though they were not persecuted they would never be completely accepted, nor would they be allowed to fully integrate in society.<\/p>\n Everything suggests that the first centuries were peaceful, so much so that Judaism gained adepts and generated a considerable number of conversions that annoyed and worried the Catholic Church. The two religions, with an important common root, were not so different then, and changing from one to the other was easier.<\/p>\n To begin with, the arrival of the Visigoths in the fifth century did not affect the Jews because the new invaders were Arians<\/a>, an eastern Christian denomination. But when they were eventually converted to Roman Catholicism, the Church and the State began a first period of repression and persecution of the Jews, who were saved by the onset of the Moorish invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 711.<\/p>\n Detail of James I in the Mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca<\/a>, 1285-1290<\/p><\/div>\n Living in Catalonia under Muslim rule was one of the happiest times for the Jews. The Arabs respected their faith and allowed them to practise it freely. Later, in Catalonia under the rule of the counts, and during the reign of King James I<\/a>, the circumstances were also favourable for the Catalan Jews in Christian territory, with the notable presence of many illustrious members at court as advisers in the service of the king.<\/p>\n This period of tolerance, on both sides of the frontier during the Reconquista<\/em><\/a>, encouraged literary and intellectual creativity and made it possible for great figures of Jewish culture to flourish in Catalonia.<\/strong> Forcano mentioned the poet and mathematician from Tortosa Menahem ben Saruq<\/a>, the author of the first Hebrew dictionary, and the rabbi Shlomo ibn Aderet<\/a>, the director of the Talmudic academy in Barcelona, who has bequeathed to us more than 3,000 answers to doubts and consultations that were addressed to him by Jews from all over the world.<\/p>\n Despite James I good treatment of the Jews, at the end of his reign not even the king himself was able to prevent the imposition of increasingly coercive measures against the people of David. It was the prelude to the XIV century, the most terrible in the history of Judaism in Catalonia.<\/strong> Even before the beginning of that century, Jews all over the Principality were forced to wear specific clothes or badges to distinguish them from Christians. This mark, either a hooded cloak as in Barcelona, or whatever was decreed in each city, encouraged the stigmatization of the Jews and made their everyday lives enormously difficult.<\/p>\n Marlet Street at the junction with Sant Dom\u00e8nec del Call, Barcelona. Font: Wikipedia<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n Moreover, after decades of economic and social expansion, the XIV century was a time of crisis and disasters, with a series of plagues, epidemics and earthquakes. The Jews were blamed for all these ills and anti-Semitic hatred grew in Christian society, fanned by part of the Church and the orders of preachers. This anti-Semitism came to a head in 1391, with a huge wave of massive attacks in calls<\/em><\/a> (Jewish quarters) all over the kingdom, which, despite the king\u2019s attempts to stop them, seriously and irreversibly decimated the aljames<\/em><\/a> (Jewish communities).<\/p>\n After these attacks, the XV century witnessed the death throes of Catalan Jews. Many Jewish quarters disappeared<\/strong>, and few families remained, because the majority had either died, gone into exile or had converted to Christianity. The decree of expulsion of 1492 was merely the coup de gr\u00e2ce that certified the official end of the Jewish presence in Catalonia. Forced conversions of many of the communities, however, did not reduce the threat of violence towards converted Jews (conversos<\/em>). Instead of seeing their sacrifice rewarded, they were perpetual suspects that had to be watched over carefully.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FORCANO-001.jpg\")
<\/a>The history of the Jews in Catalonia<\/h3>\n
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