9/11 A Day of Remembrance

Today was the first day of the Melton Seminar and the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Endings and beginnings. Tracing death and expulsion of the Jews of Spain - an end to an era of high culture. Remembering the death of so many innocent people in the US and the end of our era of comfort and safety in America.

We began the day by sleeping in until 9:30 - not out of choice, but because I got AM and PM mixed up on the clock and the alarm never went off. After a quick breakfast we went to the museum across the street from the Prado. It was small and manageable in the short two hour time frame we had before the Seminar began. Saw works by Degas, Manet, Monet, Hopper, Gauguin, Munch and many others.

Returning to the hotel we checked in with our Melton facilitators and had the opportunity to see old friends from former
Seminars. We know more than half the participants on this Seminar and it's wonderful to renew these acquaintances.

We began with a short session at the hotel and then hopped on the Madrid metro to go to the main square of Madrid, Plaza Maior.






This was the scene of the Auto de Fe of the Inquisition in the 1500's, after the Jews had been expelled in 1492. The church was seeking to purify itself - to rid Spain of the "false Christians," those Jews who had converted, but were accused of secretly practicing Judaism. Toady it is the scene of families on outings, street entertainers, outdoor cafes, and expensive apartments. I engaged a street performer impersonating Edward Scissorhands and got to shake his bladed hands.


From there we walked through old, winding streets to reach the area that had been the original Jewish Quarter. Almost nothing remains to make it recognizable. In fact, the streets were all renamed with Catholic names after 1492 to emphasize the "purification" of the area.


The evening culminated in dinner in Madrid's only Kosher restaurant and a presentation by Derek Weiss, Director of the Madrid Jewish community. The current Jewish community of Madrid numbers about 8000 and began in the 1950's with immigrants from Morocco. How ironic that the Jews who fled spain to Morocco in 1492 returned to Spain to escape persecution in Morocco in 1956. Most of the Jews who live in and around the old Jewish quarter today are elderly. The younger members have moved to the northern suburbs of Madrid where there is a traditional Orthodox day school with about 300 students.