A friend of mine was traveling from United States to Israel with a transfer stop of 12 hours in Spain. He asked me if I knew where to find a jewish tour guide who could pick them up from the airport and show them the most symbolic parts of Toledo, maybe Madrid from a jewish perspective, in a very quick tour.
As I lived there more then one year, close to the old jewish quarter of Toledo (Spain), I'd already learn the important role of the sefardic jewish culture in the history of Spain. Thanks to readings and useful lectures of my local friends I learned every corner of Jewish Toledo with its corresponding story.
Basicly, jews started to settle in Toledo after the destruction of the second temple and co existed with muslims and christians until they expelled all of them in 1492.
My friend explained me that before he consulted me, he occurred to him the idea to consult the local chabad house of Madrid or Toledo. Apparently in Toledo there is no chabad house but in Madrid yes...there is one. After a quick research in the internet, my friend send to the rabbi lubavitch an e-mail. The chabad rabbi replied him right away by recomending a shomer mitzvot guy in Madrid whit the name of Shlomo. It was me again.....what a coincidence::))!!
So my first experience in this job was was with a good friend of mine. Then I realized that organizing Jewish Toledo Tours could be a good oportunity to meet with new yehudim from every corner of the world. From United States to South Africa ... from Canada to Australia. The need for a presentable jewish guide for especial jewish customers pushed me to create this web site in order to facilitate them to reach me easily.
Later on, slowly slowly baruch H'm I started to have more custmomer thanks to the references of my previous customers. When you listen that cute "adios!" with a strong american accent there is no word to describe your profesional satisfaction after a long day of working.
Sometimes people ask me how can enjoy the same thing when yo do it repeatedly. In theory it's a good question. I have a good answer for this good question:
Basicly, I don't do the same think. The secret is the angle from which you see the things. Every person is a different world. When you become a good friend of your customer in a short period of time by sharing and interchanging the details of your life by means of cultural commun points, every moment of this "Jewish Toledo Tour" become a new and interesting experience. Each customer teach me something else about his comunity, their traditions, their shuls, their food, their piont of view in some particular matters, etc. etc.....
For whom who wants to have a general idea it goes like this:
Our "Jewish Toledo Tour" starts as follows:
At the beginning of the day I pick them up from the airport or their hotel with my car. Then we head to Toledo. After a trip of almost one hour we arrive the destination. We park the car and make a tour of the old city of Toledo on foot. This Jewish Toledo tour takes aproximately 4-5 hours.
Then we go back to Madrid for the dinner in the kosher restaurant of the city.
If the customer wishes also to visit Madrid, optionally I could arrange a tour the next day or within the afternoon of the same day.
Here is my web page:
http://www.jewishtoledotour.com/
I hope this information about the tour will be useful for everybody.
Hope to see you soon:)
