Toledo was once the “City of Three Cultures,” with Christian, Islamic and Jewish communities living side-by-side, if not always comfortably.
While that situation lasted a couple of centuries after the Christian conquest in 1085, both of the synagogues that can be visited in Toledo today also have long traditions of Catholic use after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; hence the puzzling name of the Synagogue of Santa Maria la Blanca.
The entrance is in a pleasant courtyard, complete with gift store and ornate waterspout. The original entrance, above, is on the side of the building.
Unlike ancient synagogues in central Europe, the Toledo synagogues, and especially Santa Maria, reflect the architecture of Islamic Spain and mosques, with their rows of keystone arches and elaborate carvings. This one was built in the late 12th century, just about the time of conquest. It may have replaced either a mosque or an older synagogue at the same site.
By the 1390s, Toledo’s days of tolerance were numbered, and there were pogroms, which led to many of Toledo’s Jews moving south into Moorish Spain for safety. Somewhere around 1400, the synagogue was seized by the Catholic church and turned into a church that took its name from a white statue of St Mary placed in it.
Later it was used as a military barracks, a warehouse and a dance hall. In 1856, it was restored as a national memorial site and in 1929 returned to church control. Despite a request by Spain’s Federation of Jewish Communities to gain ownership, it is still owned by the Catholic archdiocese, which has spent about €800,000 in conservation on the building in the past dozen years.
The other synagogue, which is home to the Sephardic Museum, also has an ironic name: El Transito. That’s the popular name of a painting, “El Tránsito de la Virgen” (The Assumption of the Virgin), a 16th-century by Toledoan painter Juan Correa de Vivar which hung in the synagogue during its time as a church. It usually hangs in the Prado in Madrid, but it’s on a two-year visit to its old home.
The Transito Synagogue is more recognizable as a place for Jewish worship, including the recessed space in the east wall for the Torah scrolls.
Built 300 years later than Santa Maria la Blanca, El Transito belongs to the last century of Jewish life in Toledo. Like many synagogues of that era, it was built by a prominent and wealthy member of the community, in this case Samuel Ha-Levi. It was built after the construction of new synagogues had been banned—but Samuel Ha-Levi served the king, Pedro of Castile as treasurer, judge and diplomat, so exceptions applied.
His favored status didn’t last forever, though; in 1360 he was charged with corruption, imprisoned in Seville and tortured to death. The synagogue, however, remained in service until 1492, when it was turned into a church, and later into a military barracks. Starting in the 1870s, several waves of restoration returned and then removed church fittings; at one point it was used as part of the El Greco Museum.
Its role as a museum of Sephardic Jewish life began in 1910 under the Vega-Inclan Foundation; in 1964 a royal decree established it as the Museo Sefardi. Its name was later changed to National Museum for Hispanic-Hebraic Art, but it appears that no one has paid attention to the change.
When I visited, most of the museum was closed for renovation and reorganization, but the exhibits above were on view on the lower floor—a traditional Sephardic bride’s and groom’s wedding costumes, as well as a hand-written ketuba or marriage contract. Ironically, both are from 19th century Morocco, where a large community long preserved Sephardic customs of the synagogue’s era.
