Alex Trelinski
SPAIN will get its first large-scale Jewish museum which is scheduled to open in Madrid in 2025.
The Hispanic-Jewish Museum will aim ‘to unearth the common history between the Jewish people and 600 million Spanish speakers, exposing their shared values’ according to David Hatchwell of the Fundacion Hispanojudia that has been trying to set up the project since 2016.
“This museum, which will have a clear international vocation, will enrich the cultural approach of Jewish museums in the world,” said Hatchwell.
The museum will feature interactive exhibitions and ‘cutting-edge technology’ and be housed in a building on Calle Castello which is currently owned by Madrid’s transport system.
Fundacion Hispanojudia promises that the museum ‘will transport visitors through centuries of history and will allow them to discover the richness and diversity of Jewish culture in the Hispanic context, with a clear vocation to build a better future’.
Other displays of Jewish culture can be found elsewhere in Spain including a small museum at what may have been a medieval synagogue in Barcelona, as well as a substantial Sephardic museum in Toledo at the Synagogue of El Transit that dates back to the 14th century.
Some 13,000 affiliated Jews and 50,000 Jewish residents live in Spain, according to the World Jewish Congress.
Prior to the expulsion in 1492, around 200,000 to 250,000 Jews lived in the country.
In 1986, Spain recognised the State of Israel, after which the two countries created diplomatic ties.
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