I'd read in many books that Toledo (Spain) had a very very important role in the sefardic jewish culture. Jews start to settle there after the destruction of the second temple and co existed with muslims and christians until they expelled all of them in 1492.
In this year, the catholic kings (Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand) issued an edict against the jews where they were accusing them for desgenerating their faith. This document is known as the "Alhamra Decree". Alhamra is the name of a palace in a southern city of Spain called Granada. Today, in Granada there is a royal palace with its huge garden with tha same name and it's one of the most important touristic stops of Spain.
You can see a picture of that document in the main page of this adress. All you need to do is observe the slide show which will give youa general idea about Toledo from a jewish perspective.
As the aim of this page is to facilitate to contact me for customers who want special tours focused on the jewish past of Toledo I thought it was important to put a presentation.
If you wanna see it larger you just double click on one of the pictures.
Any way....let's get back to the main question!
After the jews were expelled from Spain without any property or money, the city's economy started to getting worse as the cristians were not allowed to practice any comercial business at that time. It's known that the biggest part of the jewelery business was controled by the jews. Even today, the street which was the center of jewelery business in that days, still keeps his original name; "Calle del Plata" which would be translated to english as "Street of silver".
Just after the deadline mencioned in the expulsion decree, the king gave the control of the jewish cementaries to the control of "nice and sweet" spanish inquisition, in other words to the churh. The inquisitors remove all the jewish tombstones and used them for constructional purposes. Especialy to built the entry of the buildings with a big and well-shaped marble stone.
Today we can see two archived examples of these stones in Toledo. One it's in Calle del Plata which we mentioned before and the other one is the main entry of a building called Corral de Don Diego close to the main square of Zocodover.
During my Visit Jewish Toledo Tour I show my customers both of these two stones who witnessed one of the most darkest period of the european jewish history.
I think that it's very important not to forget the unbearable sufferings that our ancestory lived in the hand of cruel inquisition after a golden age who flourished all the spanish culture.
During this terrifying days, tens of thousands of refugees died while trying to reach safety. In some instances, Spanish ship captains charged Jewish passengers unmerciful amount of moneys, then abondoned them in the middle of the ocean. In the last days before the expulsion, rumors spread throughout Spain that the fleeing refugees had swallowed gold and diamonds, and many Jews were knifed to death by reaver bandids hoping to find precious items in their stomachs.
If you wanna feel the ambiance of these day and visit Toledo from a jewish perspective please don't hesitate to contact us.
