Córdoba

Headstone of Yehudah Bar Akon found in Zumbacón

The Archaeological Museum conserves the only Jewish funeral headstone found until now in the city of Córdoba relating to the Jew Yehudah bar Akon, undoubtedly an important figure who died in Córdoba in the mid-11th century.

Having appeared in the Zumbacón district during the course of an emergency excavation and closed in 845, this piece is extremely important as it is the only material remains known until now which documents the Cordoban Jewish aljama during the governance of the Omeya emirs. It is also the oldest Jewish headstone found in Spain along with the trilingual headstone of Tortosa. The piece is complete and its text, written in Hebrew, bears the name of the deceased, the year of death and a prayer on a white-yellowish marble base which is 21 cm high, 32 cm wide and 2.5 cm thick.

The headstone is carried out on a reused piece. It was originally a Parietal RomanArchitrave as it conserves the remains of frames on the back. The text, written in Hebrew, is produced in relief, using the same technique as was used for Arab kufic inscriptions. Thanks to José Ramón Ayaso Martínez we have access to its translation:

After discovering this important piece, Isabel Larrea and Enrique Hiedra undertook an investigation published in the Anejos de Anales de Arqueología Cordobesa (Annexes of the Annals of Cordoban Archaeology) (2010) in which they relate the Zumbacón headstone with the Jewish necropolis found in the immediate vicinity of Santos Pintados (the current Glorieta de Los Almogávares).

Memorial stone at St. Michaelʼs Church

Alongside the puerta de Osario (Ossuary gate), called Bab al-Yahud (Jews' Gate) before the Christian conquest, there lies St. Michaelʼs church inside which there is a Hebrew inscription. The inscription is a memorial stone from the now disappeared Jewish cemetery of Córdoba from the times of the Emir and the Caliph, reused to build the temple and situated in the central apse, that of the presbytery on the Evangelist nave side.

Although it is hard to read owing to the deterioration of the piece, according to the expert Jordi Casanovas, the inscription, a mere three lines, says:

The memorial stone inscription shares the final content of the Zumbacón headstone; descanse su alma en el haz de los vivientes. This content, the simplest and oldest, had only appeared up to that point in a further two Jewish inscriptions of the peninsula; the trilingual headstone of Tortosa (6th century) and the Calatayud headstone (circa 919).

The appearance of the Zumbacón headstone with the same content and probably deriving from the same cemetery, closed in 845, perhaps serves to date the memorial stone between the 9th and 10th centuries. In any case, the chronology of both pieces makes it unlikely that any of them belonged to the Jewish cemetery of the Huerta del Rey (the King's Garden) associated with the Jewish occupation of the Jewish quarter we know today of which we only have a record in the Late Middle Ages Christian period and they must in all likelihood have been placed in the Jewish cemetery from the time of the Emir and the Caliphate which has now disappeared.

Hasday ibn Shaprut was one of the most unique figures in the court of Abderramán III, a doctor and right-hand man of the Caliph, born in Jaén in 910 and appointed by him the nasir or chief of Jewish communities of Al-Ándalus, a post he held with others such as the minister or head of protocol. A diplomat, writer, a wealthy man and true patron of poets, philosophers, grammaticians and scientists, Ibn Shaprut acted as a true minister of foreign affairs of the Caliphate and was one of the major driving forces in the golden age of Al-Ándalus Jewish culture. He died in Córdoba in around 975.

Al-Fasi was born and lived for nearly 40 years in Al Qalʼa of Beni Hammad, near Fes. In 1088, aged seventy-five, two informers denounced him to the government upon some unknown charge. He left Fes for Cordoba, eventually becoming head of the yeshiva in Lucena in 1089.

Sefer ha-Halachot extracts all the pertinent legal decisions from the three Talmudic orders Moed, Nashim and Nezikin as well as the tractates of Berachot and Chulin - 24 tractates in all. Al Fasi transcribed the Talmudʼs halakhic conclusions verbatim, without the surrounding deliberations. Maimonides wrote that Al-Fasi's work

Alfasi brought the geonic period to a close, the last of the Babylonian geonim, Rav Hai Gaon, died when Alfasi was 25 years old. Al-Fasi himself was called Gaon by several early halachic authorities. When Alfasi was himself on the point of death, he recommended as his successor in the Lucena rabbinate, not his own son, but his pupil Rabbi Joseph ibn Migash.

Yehuda Ha Leví (1070-1141) is the prince of Hebrew-Al-Andalus poets according to a phrase by Menéndez Pidal. He was adept at all kinds of poetic genres: panegyrics, poems of friendship and love, nuptial poetry, moaxajas, elegies etc. His friendly nature would bring him the friendship of the most illustrious men of letters of Jewish-Span9sh society with whom he exchanged letter poems. Abraham ibn Ezrá could have been his co-father-in-law.

His poetry features his Messianic hopes and the idea that the redemption of the Jewish people involved their return to the promised land:

With the passage of time his work tended towards philosophy and the apology of Judaism. The Kuzari is regarded as a vital work. Written in the form of a dialogue in Arab, it was translated into Hebrew and in the 17th century to Castilian Spanish. From the Kabbalist circles and anti-rationalists it becomes the reference work for the national consciousness of the Jewish people in exile.

In 1141, nearing seventy, after living in Córdoba for a few years, he died on the way to Alexandria and we are unaware whether he managed to reach Jerusalem.

Abraham Ibn Ezrá (c. 1089-1167) spent his youth in al-Andalus (in Córdoba, Seville and Lucena) where he trained in Jewish culture in Arab.

In around 1140 he decided to abandon Sefarad to travel around the North of Africa, probably in the company of Yehudá ha-Leví, and Europe. He thus became a wandering wise man, well received for the knowledge he transmitted to the communities he visited: those of Beziers and Narbonne in France, Rome, England etc.

We are unaware whether he returned to Sepharad or whether he died in a European country. Howver, his multifaceted figure has left a deep mark on the whole intellectual life of the Jews of Europe. His biblical comments are some of the most highly appreciated in the Jewish world; his grammars are a common summary of the philological knowledge of Al-Andalus 11th century which it had not been possible to access up to then without knowing Arab and he introduced into the West the mathematical concepts of fractions and decimals.

He died in around 1167 according to some historians in Calahorra. His fame was so extensive that one of the craters on the moon, 42 kilometres in diameter, currently bears his name: Abenezrah.

Despite having been surpassed by Maimonides, Abraham ibn Daud (1110-1180) is the real father of Jewish rationalist thought. A philosopher and a historian, he was famous for introducing Aristotelian thought into the knowledge of Judaism and he was the first Jewish thinker who was an apologist of Aristotelian rationalism, before Maimonides. Up to that time the Jews had tended towards Neo-Platonism as is the case of Ibn Gabirol.

As far as his life was concerned, we know that, like many Jews — including Maimonides and his family—, he fled from the city after the invasion by the intolerant Almohads in 1148 and took refuge in Toledo. Whilst there he wrote his philosophical work Al-Akidah al-Rafiyah (The sublime faith) in Arab in 1160 which was subsequently translated into Hebrew, and in around 1161 his most famous work, Sefer ha-Kabbalah (Book of tradition), a detailed list of the generations of Jewish spiritual leaders, from Moses to the contemporary Rabbis.

He died in Toledo in 1180. In 2010 the ninth centenary of his birth was celebrated.

Moses ben Maimón, better known as Maimonides, or also by his Hebrew initials which form the name of Rambam, was born in Córdoba on March 30th 1135. Maimonides was the son of Rabbi Maión ben Yosef with whom he started studying the Torah; he would later learn maths, astronomy, physics and philosophy. Fleeing from Córdoba because of the pressure of the Almohads, in 1171 he arrived in Cairo where he set up as the doctor of the court of Saladin, subsequently attaining the office of ra'is al-Yahud or head of the Jewish community. Whilst in the Egyptian capital he would write his Regimen of Health. Comments on the aphorisms of Hippocrates, Comments on the Mishneh and Letter to Yemen, as well as his two most famous works: the legal treatise Mishneh Torah (Second Law) and the Moreh Nevukhim (Guide of the perplexed), written in Arab and later translated into Hebrew. He died in Cairo on December 13th 1204.

The Old Citadel district was where the Jews settled after the Christian conquest of the city in 1236.

some Jews settled in nearby areas and subsequently at commercial sites within the San Salvador district where the Local Council is now housed and the San Andrés district alongside the parish of San Nicolás de la Axerquía in Ribera and even to the north of the city on the outskirts of the Puerta del Osario (Cemetery Gate), Merced field and the Santa Marina district, revealing that they could move about the city easily.

The Jewish quarter. Deanes Street

From an urbanistic perspective, theJewish Quarter district presents the typical Islamic layout with two central intersecting streets and a labyrinth of small roads which sometimes culminated in typical culs-de sac or wall-walks. The limits of the current Jewish quarter stretch from the Almodóvar Gate to the Mosque-Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace (the former Al-Andalus citadel) to the south. Rey Heredia street marked the district frontier to the east, adjoining the wall to the west. These limits thus coincide major features with the streets Judíos, Albucasis, Manríquez, Averroes, Judería, Almanzor, Tomás Conde, Deanes, Romero and the squares Cardenal Salazar, Judá Leví and Maimónides.

The current Jewish quarter district was separated from the rest of the city by a walled site which isolated its inhabitants whilst protecting them from the Christians anger. We know that one of the gates of this site was that of Malburguete located opposite the Mosque-Cathedral at the start of the current Judería street. But not all the Jews lived in this district. Reduced at the beginning to the east, very soon, as from 1260, some Jews settled in nearby areas and subsequently at commercial sites within the San Salvador district where the Local Council is now housed and the San Andrés district alongside the parish of San Nicolás de la Axerquía in Ribera and even to the north of the city on the outskirts of the Puerta del Osario (Cemetery Gate), Merced field and the Santa Marina district, revealing that they could move about the city easily. Over the centuries the Sephardis also lived in other areas of the city. Later, in 1272 Alfonso X the Wise ordered the closing off of the Jewish quarter district, forcing the Jews to live therein and thereby creating the Jewish quarter around the Mosque which we know today.

in 1272 Alfonso X the Wise ordered the closing off of the Jewish quarter district, forcing the Jews to live therein and thereby creating the Jewish quarter around the Mosque which we know today.

Interior of the synagogue

Situated at number 20 on Judíos street, the synagogue is undoubtedly the most important building of the Cordoban Jewish quarter. Closed in 5075 in the Jewish calendar, in other words 1315 of the Christian era, the temple was built under the reign of Alfonso VI as thanks by the latter to the Jews for their collaboration in the victory at the Battle of Salado against the Moslems. The work was completed by Isaac Moheb as stated in the foundation inscription.

A small courtyard precedes the entrance to the hall from which access is gained to the prayer room and the steps which lead to the women's tribune on the upper floor. In the first, a spacious stone souk precedes the precious decoration of arabesque on the four walls; on the eastern wall, the central space stands out, presided over by a menorah which occupies the place where the rabbi conducting the ceremony would stand, and on his right a brick cabinet has been conserved used for keeping the Aron Kodesh or holy ark inside which the Torahscrolls were kept; at the southern wall the tribune opens up by way of three magnificent windows.

After the expulsion of the Jews, the synagogue complex, which included the annexed Talmudic study centre, became a hydrophobic hospital and the prayer room was transformed into the Chapel of Santa Quiteria.In 1588 the property was acquired by the brotherhood of cobbles, a guild which included a major part of New Christians of Jewish origin and in the 19th century the roof was replaced by a barrel vault and the plasterwork was lined in stucco.. In 1884 the chaplain Mariano Párraga, along with the academic Rafael Romero Barros (father of the painter Julio Romero de Torres), discovered the original plasterwork and in 1885, after it was declared a National Monument, a careful recovery process began which has allowed much of its original splendour to be restored.

Citadel of the Catholic Monarchs

The Citadel of the Christian Monarchs was built by Alfonso XI the Justice maker in 1327 on part of the former Caliph's Al-Andalus palace, being intended to serve as the royal residence and bestowing upon it the castle features which have survived until today. The Inquisition headquarters was set up at the Citadel in 1492 alongside the castle of the Jews, one of the traditional sites of the Jewish collective after King Fernando III the Saint arrived in the city in 1236.

The citadel was the royal residence during the 14th and 15th centuries and as from 1482 it became the headquarters for the Catholic Monarchs' army to conquer the kingdom of Granada. It was here that Isabel and Fernando received Christopher Columbus and here they were remained until the taking of Granada when they handed the citadel over to the Inquisition. The Court of the Holy Office - which turned a large part of the palace rooms into dungeons - remained at this headquarters until 1812 when the Courts of Cádiz abolished it.

Calahorra Tower

At the southern end of the Roman Bridge is the La Calahorra Tower, a fortress of Islamic origin which consisted of two towers joined by an arch which allowed access to the city. The building is currently conserved (with very slight modifications) just as it was erected and carried out in 1369 by order of King Enrique II on the Moslem fortification. This monarch undertook the remodelling of the building to strengthen the city's defences, a committed proponent of this idea in the long dispute with his brother King Pedro I the Cruel whose armies (and those of his Moslem allies) were defeated by the Cordobans at the battle of Campo de la Verdad, next to the fortress.

Declared a historic-artistic monument in 1931 and restored and conditioned in 1954, the Calahorra Tower was granted to the Institute for Dialogue between Cultures which set up an audio-visual museum there with modern tape-guide techniques. The Museum of the Three Cultures consists of 14 rooms and it presents a cultural overview of the medieval apogee of Córdoba between the 9th and 13th centuries, based on a mutual fertilisation of the Moslem, Christian and Jewish cultures. One of the museum rooms is devoted to Maimonides. It also has a reproduction of Azarquielʼs Astrolabe and depiction of the rites undertaken at the Synagogue.

Entrance to the chapel of St. Bartholomew on Averroes street

At the corner of Averroes street and Cardenal Salazar, the chapel of St. Bartholomew serves as an example of the setting up right in the heart of the Jewish quarter of a new parish of converts after the attack of 1391 when the Jews who decided to remain faithful to the law of Moses were segregated to the stronghold of the Old Citadel.

Possibly raised on a former mosque between 1399 and 1410, the chapel constitutes a splendid example of Gothic-Mudejar style. It comprises a rectangular nave with a cross vault which still retains a plinth of original plasterwork and tiles which have recently been restored; it also has a courtyard parallel to the chapel nave with a façade giving out onto the street. On the façade there is a pointed arch and a three-arched portico, whilst the roof is lined in Arabic ceramic tiles.

It currently forms part of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of Córdoba University. Cardenal Salazar street leads to the square of the same name where you can access the University outbuilding in a building which used to serve as the Provincial Hospital of Agudos.

During Easter Week of 1473 an incident occurred which ended up bringing about an attack on the Jewish quarter of Córdoba.

It is recounted that when the procession of the Brotherhood of Charity reached Herrería street –which now forms part of Cardenal González street – a woman threw water from the house of a convert which fell onto the image of the Virgin and the rumour spread that they were faecal waters hurled out of disrespect for the Catholic faith.

The Brothers of Charity, believing that the Sephardis had instigated the woman to commit this sacrilege, attacked the Jewish quarter, commanded by Alonso Rodríguez, the blacksmith of the San Lorenzo district. During the attack they murdered anyone they ran into and set fire to their homes. The knight Alonso de Aguilar, the brother of the Great Captain, arrived at Rastro leading some of his men and ordered Alonso Rodríguez to stop the slaughter. Far from obeying, the blacksmith insulted Alonso de Aguilar who attacked and killed him.

The death of Alonso Rodríguez exacerbated the situation and the riot lasted for four days until Alonso de Aguilar, who had taken refuge in the Citadel, came out onto the street and offered the Jews forgiveness for the crimes. The Brotherhood of Charity, realising that they had encouraged the conflict promoted by the blacksmith Alonso Rodríguez, agreed to perpetuate the memory of Alonso de Aguilar by placing a Cross at the Rastro.

Enmedio street. The former Old Citadel

The Old Citadel district was where the Jews settled after the Christian conquest of the city in 1236. As early as the 15th century the Chief Magistrate Francisco Valdés again moved the Jews to the Old Citadel district in 1478. However, the Jewish community complained to the Catholic King and managed to return to their former site within a year. The stipulation by Fernando the Catholic on May 16th 1479 ran as follows:

After the expulsion of the Jews, the synagogue complex, which included the annexed Talmudic study centre, became a hydrophobic hospital and the prayer room was transformed into the Chapel of Santa Quiteria.

In 1588 the property was acquired by the brotherhood of cobbles, a guild which included a major part of New Christians of Jewish origin and in the 19th century the roof was replaced by a barrel vault and the plasterwork was lined in stucco.

. In 1884 the chaplain Mariano Párraga, along with the academic Rafael Romero Barros (father of the painter Julio Romero de Torres), discovered the original plasterwork and in 1885, after it was declared a National Monument, a careful recovery process began which has allowed much of its original splendour to be restored.

Miniature of the Sarajevo Haggadah

Traditionally, the Fonsario or Jewish cemetery was situated outside the walls in the former Huerta del Rey, near the Almodóvar gate and the modern Doctor Fleming Avenue, but it has not been possible to corroborate its existence archaeologically.

A Jewish cemetery was located at the excavations carried out by Enrique Romero de Torres around 1930 and a second excavation carried out by José Andrés Vázquez in 1934 who found Jewish burials in a mound situated between the Seville Gate and the modern cemetery of Nuestra Señora de la Salud (Our Lady of Health).

José Andrés Vázquez found twenty tombs of trapezoidal shaped facing eastwards; some of them formed by freestone ashlars with fragmented tile wedges and Arab bricks and roofs with large-scale ashlar made from similar stone. Between these tombs two were joined by a vault-shaped brick thread and also facing east. Alongside the human remains contained by these tombs there were many nails, some of which had wooden adherences. Around the tombs there were fragments of Mudejar ceramics.

At a later date, Romero de Torres would resume the excavation works around twenty metres further up from the place where the previous findings were made. On this occasion around forty two sepulchres were excavated which were identical to the previous ones, with the same orientation and the same construction materials. Other poorer quality tombs were excavated at the site and their contour indicated with boulders. An Arab rainwater tank was also found containing ten skeletons mixed with nails and facing towards the east.

Aerial view of the excavated area of the Santos Pintados maqbara

In January 1953 Samuel Santos Gener, the director of the Córdoba Archaeological Museum, echoed there are some Jewish sepulchres in the immediate vicinity of Santos Pintados. An array of:

The cemetery, given an affiliation which may be Mozarab, follows a pattern which is virtually identical to that of the maqbara, or Islamic cemetery found in Zumbacón: position of the individuals in supine position with variations in their orientation, though burials with the head to the East and feet to the West predominate. Burials in cist abound whose grave is sometimes lined in calcarenite ashlars with or without a cover, with the latter formed, where applicable, by three or four well-edged limestone slabs.

The graves can be rectangular or trapezoidal based; there are none which are anthropomorphically based. Neither is there any record of trousseaus. Worthy of special note is the poor condition of the majority of the funereal structures, particularly the bone remains and the latter are frequently absent under some of the localised structures.

Tiberidades square with the sculpture of Maimonides

The private Tiberiades square, where the bronze sculpture of Maimonides is situated, the work of Amadeo Ruiz Olmos, is a small square for a great man, the greatest of those coming out of the Cordoban aljama, so much so that amongst the Jews the expression arose De Moisés a Moisés no hubo otro como Moisés (Moses come and go but there was none like Moses), alluding to the first name of Moses ben Maimón, better known as Maimonides, or also by his Hebrew initials which formed the name Rambam.

The sculpture was inaugurated in 1985 to commemorate the 850th anniversary of the birth of the Sephardi scholar and the square received the name of Tiberiades, the Palestinian settlement in Galilee where the cenotaph is situated which pays universal tribute to Maimonides. Dressed in Arabian style, sitting in melancholy fashion with a book between his hands, the universal master seems to be recalling, right in the heart of the Jewish quarter which he saw come to light, a life packed with deeds and visions.

Entrance to the Sefarad House on Judíos street

Directly facing the synagogue, casa de Sefarad, or the House of Memory is a 14th century property which is linked, according to various sources, to the Jewish temple. The coloured circles of the courtyard chapter are one of the original elements of this building, restored conscientiously to recreate the spirit of the Cordoban Jews. Besides serving as a point of reference on any itinerary through Hebrew Córdoba, the Casa de la Memoria (House of Memory) is a cultural centre where concerts and acts of many kinds are staged and it boasts a specialised library and shop where you can find a wide range of Jewish-related objects.