Toledo

5. Spain

El Greco’s Painting of “Toledo”

TOLEDO

From Granada, the road to Toledo was longer than we had anticipated. The long drive was a good opportunity for lively conversation. There was much to discuss about what we had seen and learned so far. About halfway between the cities we came across a gas station. In Spain gas stations for cars are like water fountains and restrooms for seniors – use ‘em when you see ‘em. Spain is much like Wyoming, in that there are hundreds of miles of land punctuated by an occasional town. However, unlike Wyoming's endless miles of tundra-like sagebrush and wild grass, Spain's hundreds of miles are mostly well-cultivated with grapes and olives.

In the middle of nowhere, we spot a large, recently built gas station and pull in. As I was topping off the tank, the other three went into the station. (We began with five of us, our friends’ daughter had to go back home for work, thus we were now four.) I thought, perhaps they needed a pit stop. Perhaps there's a snack bar inside. Who knows?

So I entered the station and paid for the gas. Pero, donde estan mis compañeros? Where was the gang? I checked a small lounge off to the left. No estaban allí . I checked the restrooms. Y’ no estaban aquí.

I was about to recheck the outside, when I caught glimpse of a room hidden from view by a lovely white curtain. I went through the curtain and my mouth dropped to my chin. Here in this gas station – 150 miles from Cordoba and 150 miles from Toledo – was the most beautiful restaurant one might ever imagine seeing! There were some 50 tables set with white and peach starched linen tablecloths and matching napkins, crystal and china and silverware as nice as one would expect to see in the best 5 star establishment. "It's a gas station," I kept saying to myself. "It's in the middle of the country, and no one lives around here for a miles. What in the world is this all about?"

But, there at the far end of the room sat my compañeros, bibbed, forks up, and ready to eat. So, I joined them. Seven wait-persons hovered – four with menus, two with water, one with bread ... none spoke a word of English. The menu was unintelligible. It's not the first part of the entrée that's difficult ... we knew the words for veal, chicken, beef, etc., but it's the culinary adjective, the preparation descriptor, that's usually a killer. "Pollo Solomio" is chicken something or other. But ... is it sautéed? baked? pulled? beaten to a pulp? smothered in mayonnaise? fried in pig's liver with a shrimp sauce? Who could know? But we managed – speaking a word here and there, and using terrific pantomime techniques honed in previous restaurants.

We spent the minutes waiting for the food, discussing the craziness of this elegant restaurant being in the boonies. What must they have been thinking when they built this here? It was 2:00pm and there was no one else in the place besides us. The bread had already been replenished three times over, and the water glasses refilled. Before long, the food arrived; it was gorgeous, delicious, and un-smothered with treif.

As we began the leisurely lunch, we noted that several others were now being seated. A few minutes later, the place was entirely full and people were waiting at the door. It was like being in a movie ... enter the stars, now the extras take their places ... roll 'em ... action! In retrospect, far better a so-so gas station with a first class restaurant than ... the reverse!

The rest of the ride was uneventful except for a brief moment when we were suddenly reminded of where exactly we were. This area of Spain is called Castile de la Mancha. And there on a hill, in an area called Consuegra, appeared before us a chain of some 15 very old, very white with dark roof, windmills. We pulled off the road to take pictures and by chance the car rolled to a stop just in front of a sign depicting Sancho Panza and Don Quixote – the Man of La Mancha. Spontaneously, we became a choir – "I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha, My destiny calls, and I go! …”

When we arrived in Toledo, a city of some 80,000 people, it was after 4:30pm and darkish from the overcast skies. We were at the river surrounding the old city, but had no idea of how to get into the old city. We found a tourist office; it was still open. Only in Spain, where tourism has become a hot ticket item in the past several years, does one find tourist offices where the only language spoken is Spanish!

Well ... "Donde esta el cuidad viejo?"

"Derecha, derecha, y en el puente, izquierda."

"Gracias."

"Es un placer. Buen dia."

Now to find the bridge. At least one gets a free city map in the tourist office. Without it (especially before GPS), one can be up the proverbial arroyo without an Alcazaba ... if you catch my drift.

We got into the old city ... in our station wagon ... and it began to rain. It was now quite dim out. The streets of Toledo were built for skinny horsemen riding single file. The walls of the buildings go up several stories, but the streets between these walls are exactly as wide as a small car. We had to fold the mirrors in on both sides in order to squeeze through. Literally an inch of leeway on each side.

The game is to see how fast one can go without scratching the car, hitting a pedestrian, or honking the horn. Every 20 feet or so there is a turn to negotiate, and everywhere there are walkers who, with backs to the car, at the last moment sense an auto coming and casually step into a doorway to avoid becoming wall smear. Steady nerves, good eyes, and a fierce will to live are requisites for driving or walking in Toledo. The good news is that old city is quite small. The bad news is that the city is very complex. No street goes straight. Every street ends in a fork, which leads to other forks, which reminds one of Yogi Berra’s directives, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” In Toledo that makes sense.

Since there is little room to spare, folks use great imagination as to where they park. Half of the car on the curb the other half in the street seems to be the preferred technique. Behind a car parked in an angle-in spot is the method used most often by owners of small cars. Some cars have more than one ticket on their windshield. These seem to be regarded as badges of honor. Toledo appears at first blush to be a complex obstacle course designed on a Monday by a committee of manic-depressives following a weekend of binge drinking.

We had no hotel reservations. We blundered onto a lovely hotel in what appeared to be the Juderia of the old city. The hotel was already housing a convention of Japanese youth and was full, but the desk clerk knew of a great hotel just on the other side of town and phoned them for us. They had rooms. The clerk marked our map. It seemed a simple task to negotiate ten short blocks. I hated to leave the great parking spot I had found, but we had luggage and had no choice but to take the car. Besides, it was drizzling.

Left, right, right, left ... here, not there, should have turned left, drats, where are we? I was headed up a moderately steep street – a boulevard actually since it was wide enough for us and a bicycle, when I knew for a fact that we were going to sleep in the car if we didn't get directions. I spotted an elderly man leaning on his cane near a street corner and rolled down the window. It was drizzling briskly now.

"Perdon, Señor, donde estamos?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"We need the Hotel Carlos I."

"Oh, no problem ... go straight, right, left, right, etc."

It was pitch dark by now. I knew we were done for if we had to follow his directions.

"No es posible, Señor." It was the best I could do in Spanish.

"Ok," he said, resorting to English, "Follow me; I take you."

Big grins on our faces, I put the car in gear in anticipation of following the kind Señor who would now lead us. His cane made a distinctive tapping sound as he preceded us through the maze of streets called Toledo. It was only after we had gone about 50 yards that I noticed that his cane was white! It was indeed the blind leading the blind.

The hotel was newly redone and very nice. We were happy to be settled, and eager to explore this unusual city regardless of how late the hour, how dark or wet the streets, or how tired the bodies.

Toledo was originally a Roman town – the Romans appreciating the high mesa site with the commanding view of the countryside and bounded by the River Tagus on three sides. And they appreciated the fact that almost all roads in Spain cross through this central area of the Iberian Peninsula. So they fortified it with walls, built an aqueduct, minted coins here, and even boasted of having a grand circus. They called the city Toletum, from the Celtic meaning hill.

The Visigoths took the city in 507 and made it the political and religious capital of Spain. It soon became a center for the arts and for gold and silver works. But, as we have seen previously, the Visigoths were wont to pass legislation repressive to Jews, and so, while it may be apocryphal, it may also be true that when the Moors showed up at the gates of Toledo in 711, it was the Jews who let them in.

The Muslims called the city "Toleitola," and incorporated it into the Emirate of Cordoba. These Almoravid Muslims leave behind a legacy of architecture, two beautiful mosques, three gateways into the city, and a number of other buildings. But the Almohad Berbers who next ruled Toledo were fundamentalists who pressed the Jews to adopt Islam.

And so, history repeated itself ... in reverse. In 1085, when Catholic King Alfonso VI of Castile invaded the city, the Jews opened the gates once again. Alfonso made it the capital of Christian Spain – a title Toledo would hold for 400 years. This same Alfonso precipitated a period of expanding wealth that also lasted 400 years. Moors, Jews, and Catholics all prospered together in a tolerant Toledo for much of this period. Such toleration in Christian Spain is no small matter because during much of this period the Almohads in Andalusia were suppressing Jews.

In the 1300s in Toledo, there were 10 synagogues, five academies of Jewish studies, and a flourishing intellectual life with poets, translators, and Talmud scholars in abundance. It was that Toledo that I was looking for, the Jewish Toledo of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. But that was tomorrow’s agenda. Tonight was for walking and an early 9:30pm supper.

With maps, we entered the maze of streets and soon became adept at dodging cars, as we peered into shop windows. Toledo is famous for its steel. Actually, it was Toledo steel that gave the Arabs a decided edge (pun intended) in their battles against the Crusaders. Their short, light weight, tempered steel scimitars simply cut through the long, heavy, straight iron swords of the Christian warriors, leaving the Crusaders short handled ... and dare I say, "short tempered."

Aha, here's a sword store! (Say that quickly five times.) From three inch letter openers to three foot short blades to the five foot long sword ... any width and any kind of hilt, there were hundreds of each style and shape. Hmm, everything here but a scimitar. It occurred to me that Toledo has been a Christian stronghold for 950 years, yet, they refused to produce the “better product” because it was made for and used by another culture.

It's not just the steel that made Toledo famous. It's also the design that is worked into the metal. It's a sort of black or red filigree on a shiny brass or silver base. We watched several craftsmen at work. First, they put the base metal object – be it an ashtray, a knife, a picture frame, or the like – onto a clay holder. Then, they mark out the pattern that they will attempt. With a sharp object, they make a scoring on one of the lines in the pattern, take up the color of fine metal thread that they want to incorporate into the pattern, fit the thread into the scored line, and tap the metal thread with a mallet. By tamping it down, they actually seal the thread into the scoring. The patterns are complex. The work is tedious. Yet, there seem to be a zillion plates, trays, handles, holders, frames, ornaments, jewelry pieces, all made of this Toledo work. So much, in fact, that I was actually turned off by the sheer quantity of it all, but … the letter openers, how can one not buy something for friends and family?

The next morning, we set out to see the city, especially the Jewish aspects. Just as the Jews fared well under the Umayyads and the Almoravids, they also prospered under the early Catholic kings. From before the time of Alfonso VI who conquered the city in 1085, Jews had become masters of the art of translating literary works, especially those pertaining to the sciences, mathematics, and astronomy, into Latin and whatever other languages were needed. The style they effected was quite unique – speaking Arabic, the Jews wrote it using Hebrew letters. Thus, their translations were encoded for other Jews alone to read. This school of translators became increasingly important as trade, travel, and commerce expanded throughout Europe and Arabia.

Judaic studies also flourished in the 11th and 12th centuries: Abraham ibn Megas (1077-1141) established a Talmudic academy here in about 1100; Abraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167), the great Hebrew grammarian and biblical scholar, wrote his commentaries on the Hebrew Bible here; Abraham ibn Daud (1110-1180) wrote here a history of the Jews of Spain; and, of course, Judah HaLevi (1086-1145), poet and philosopher and ardent Zionist who we will “meet” in Cordoba, was actually born here in Toledo.

Under the rule of Alfonso VI, the Jews had become a somewhat privileged class. Yet, right after his death, in 1181, a law was enacted prohibiting Jews from holding public office. A number of important Jews immediately left town, fearing the worst. But the short period of repression passed and the good times returned. In the 12th century, Toledo may have been the most important Jewish city in Spain having as I mentioned above a large Jewish population and many synagogues. From city records, we discover that an old synagogue was restored in 1107 and a great synagogue was destroyed by fire in 1250. Kings of the 1200s, Ferdinand III (El Santo 1217-1252) and his son Alfonso X (1252-1284) were both tolerant and brought a flowering of culture to Toledo. This Christian king, Alfonso X, was called The Wise because he took many Jews into his court. Of course, this did not mean that he didn't tax them heavily. In fact, this wise king did something very un-nice.

The Jewish community was, at the time, governed by a Bet Din (a court) and administered by an oligarchy of seven to ten men. This ruling body once defied the king when he called for an excessive tax on the Jewish community. So, he had the leaders locked up in their synagogues until the tax was collected. Even a “legitimate” king can be a mamzer.

This act had further repercussions; it emboldened the Catholic clergy of Toledo to petition the king to force the Jews to desist from money lending. But the king would not hear of it. He had a vested interest in keeping the Jews wealthy and taxable. Instead, he defied the clergy by elevating even more Jews to high office in the city.

By the mid-1300s, however, the good days were coming to an end. In 1348, the Black Plague took its toll. Then a civil war broke out between Pedro the Cruel and Henry II. The Jews backed the wrong horse. When the victorious Pedro I entered the city in 1355, the Juderia was sacked and blood ran in the streets. Most of the Jews who remained were financially ruined. They had to begin again. Still, problems would not abate. In 1391, most of Toledo's synagogues were put to the torch, and many Jews became Conversos in order to save their lives. And, where there were Conversos there are sure to be Marranos – Jews who converted yet continued to practice Judaism in secret.

At first, it must have been acceptable to be Catholic in public and Jewish in private. For seemingly there were many church people who knew what many Conversos were doing, but cared mainly that Jews convert. To induce conversion, there were all sorts of techniques employed, including the forcing of Jews to attend Sunday masses and to listen to proselytizing sermons by priests and scholars. There were also numerous “sham” disputations open to the public in which a community's Rabbi would be forced to take on a church leader in debate. But, the Rabbi always debated with a disadvantage. He was not allowed to defame or refute the teachings of Christianity while having to fend off the churchman's often outrageous deprecations of Judaism.

Less benign were the inflammatory Sunday and holiday sermons of priests defaming Judaism and accusing the Jews of deicide, of desecrating the Host, and of murdering Christian children in order to put their blood into Passover matzah – the so-called blood libel. The effect of such stupid accusations on church worshipers was profound, often turning the people into a blood-thirsty Sunday mob let loose on the Juderia for acts of terrorism. Hence, the awful massacres of thousands of Jews in 1449 and 1467 in Toledo.

In time, however, it was less the Jews and more the Marranos who rankled church leaders. There was talk about the evils of heresy and the need to wipe out heretics. When repressive laws and threats of punishment did not end the secret practice of Judaism by Jews who had converted, an entire mechanism came into play – the institution known as the Holy Tribunal, or more infamously, the Inquisition.

In earlier times, corrective measures had been taken to root out heresy in any and all peoples. But in the late 1400s, the Inquisition was employed solely against Jews accused of heresy against the church. Under the auspices of the Dominican Order of monks, it received its authority from a papal bull issued in 1478. Its charge was to deal with the Marrano problem.

The first Grand Inquisitors were appointed in 1480, and the first Inquisitor General was appointed in 1483 – a Dominican priest named Tomas de Torquemada. The principal techniques used in identifying and rooting out heretics were torture, bribery, perjury, and spying. Neighbors were often called upon (persuaded) to testify that old friends performed Jewish rites in secret. That is to say, there was no escaping from the Inquisition once it determined to brand a person as a heretic.

In underground prisons, one was stretched on the rack, or pressed, pilloried, or subjected to hot irons until only a prescribed confession would stop the torture. If one didn't confess, then death on the rack was accidental. Despicable, immoral, inhumane, barbaric, venal, insane ... none of these words remotely captures the true horror of the Inquisition and its Dominican sadists.

Of course, as soon as a tortured one confessed to being a secret Jew, a Marrano, he or she had to be purified for the sake of their immortal soul. The rite employed to purify the sinner was a public humiliation – being marched through the streets wearing a sanbenito and a coroza (a loathsomely decorated serape and a pointed hat), the garments of shame during the Spanish Inquisition. The march always ended at the Plaza Major where the victim was burned alive at the stake. This immoral baseness was called euphemistically, an auto-da-fe – an act of faith. Such debacles went on in cities throughout Spain from 1481 to 1600 murdering literally thousands of Jews. Ironically, in Toledo, such spectacles were held in the Plaza de Zocodover, which today is where the police station stands, and that is also where we had encountered our blind guide.

From Spain, the tentacles of the Inquisition reached out to Portugal and from there to the New World, which was colonized by both countries of Iberia. In the 1600s, as the number of Jewish Conversos/Marranos approached zero, the Inquisition extended to Moslems and to witches and to dealing with such venal issues as sangre de limpieza – racial purity. In fact, the Inquisition was in effect active somewhere in the Catholic world until 1834 ... actively working its evil ... active in putting those who did not agree with the norms or ideology of the church to the torch ... actively engaged, until 1834, in the murder of innocents in the name of their deity.

Now, since Isabella and Ferdinand used Toledo as their throne city during the years prior to 1492 and the Expulsion of all Jews from Spain, it was to Toledo that Torquemada came to request funds and to receive the crown's encouragement for his dastardly deeds. So, Toledo was in actuality the seat of the Spanish Inquisition and Torquemada was its Eichmann.

It was this understanding that I brought with me as we made our way to the Juderia that next morning. There are two ex-synagogues here. I had seen pictures of both. Yet, I had no idea of how I would react to seeing either with my own eyes. Off of the Plaza de Barrio Nuevo in the southwest corner of the city stands one of these buildings. Walled completely about, we entered through a large gate into a spacious, nondescript courtyard with gift shop and ticket booth to the rear, and sanctuary to its right. It was build in 1203 by Joseph abu Omar ibn Shoshan. So, for two centuries it was called the Ibn Shoshan Synagogue.

It was a bit bigger than I had expected, but it looked just like its PR shots. The Moorish styling was appealing. It was uncluttered and neat. A rectangular room, it has two parallel rows of octagonal, six feet high, white columns, each with elaborate capitals molded in plaster and decorated with protruding pine cones. Quite interesting and appealing. Supported by the capitals are graceful Moorish horseshoe arches. We’ll see similar arches at Le Mezquita in Cordoba. The effect is airy and inviting. The floor tiles immediately surrounding the columns are decorative, the rest of the floor tiles are plain – a deep brownish-reddish in color. The doors to the building are huge and made of larch wood.

I am told that there are Star of David inlays in this sanctuary. I didn't see any. In fact, I saw nothing that would indicate or hint that this was, is, or ever will be a synagogue. With that discovery, I was eager to leave.

I turned toward the rear of the room and was stunned to see written on the white back wall in dark black letters a dedication of the place to Vincente Ferrer. It was that mamzer who, in 1411, came to Toledo, pressured Jews to become Catholics under fear of reprisal, and simply turned this Ibn Shoshan Synagogue into a church. He named it Santa Maria la Blanca – and that is what it is called today. In the past 400 years, the place has been used as a barracks and storeroom, as a home for reformed prostitutes, and as a carpenter's workshop. As we walked through the door, I desperately wanted to whitewash over Ferrer's name.

Gravely disappointed, we walked around the Plaza de Barrio Nuevo and down a short street to the El Transito. This synagogue did not disappoint. Everything about it said synagogue ... except the admissions clerk at the entrance. The door to the building was right off the street, so there is no garden and one enters immediately into a spacious hall. The Sephardic Museum and Library, established in the 1970s, were off to the right, and ... of course, closed for repairs. I was crushed!

This museum was one place I had desperately wanted to see just in order to take a look at one item in particular – a map of Jewish Spain circa 1250. I am told that it notes the existence of the town of Sadacca – my mother's maiden name. It is from there that all of the Sephardic Sadaccas originate, and from there that they migrated to Greece and Turkey in 1492.

The sanctuary is almost square and without aisles or columns. The highly decorated north wall was partially blocked by scaffolding. Its east wall has three arches that are north of center on the wall. Perhaps the sanctuary began more into the room with the southern end for overflow seating and access. If that were the case, then the sanctuary would be squared and the arches on the wall would be centered.

The middle arch was probably once the Aron Kodesh (the Ark for the Torah). The other arches might have been doorways to what is now the museum or to what was then the study of the Hacham – the Rabbi. A lovely plaster frieze encircles the room incorporating Hebrew words in praise of God, King Pedro, and the benefactor of the synagogue.

The synagogue was built by Meir Abdeli in 1357 and financed by Samuel Levi ibn Abulafia who we'll meet in a moment. Just after the Expulsion in 1492, this Synagogue was transferred to the Order of Calatrava, then it was owned by the priory of San Benito, and then it was dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin. It is called El Transito either because it has been transferred from group to group, or because it once belonged to a people in transition?! Quien sabe?

Normally I wouldn't focus on events that occurred after the Expulsion, but I make this exception. In 1577, a painter arrived in Toledo from his native Greece. His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos, but in Spain where no one could pronounce all that, he came to be called simply The Greek – El Greco.

El Greco immediately fell in love with Toledo, and vice-versa. He lived in a lovely home on the edge of the old Juderia. Although he never owned it, that lovely residence has been known for centuries as the house of El Greco. He was a very prolific painter. One of his most important works was of Toledo itself as he saw it in the 16th century. That painting, which graces a wall of the house, is done from the perspective of one standing outside the city walls and looking in. It shows details of the streets, the major buildings, and especially of the various neighborhoods in existence at the time. Therefore, for the historian, the cultural anthropologist, and the like, this painting is a bonanza.

His main genre, however, was religious themes – the crucifixion, the apostles, and Mary with child. (Ironically, his paramour and their illegitimate son served as his models for that painting.) One can see the growth in the painter as these same figures were drawn again and again with each passing decade. El Greco had been in Italy where he studied with Titian and Tintoretto. Michelangelo's works also influenced him greatly. Yet, his later palette featured dark ocher and yellowish-purples, and his figures are somehow elongated and disproportionate so that they appear ethereal, unworldly. I was intrigued at how the painter indicated his attitude toward the subject matter or toward the way in which a painting met his approval by how prominent and well defined the subject's hands are. I must say that I personally can stand only so much of his art. I find it morbid ... not my favorite emotion.

Of course, the painting for which he is best known is ironically about death, yet not morbid at all. It is located one block away from El Greco's House in the Santo Tome Church. There, in the entrance hall, covering an entire wall, is his commissioned mural "El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz – The Burial of the Count of Orgaz." Orgaz is a city just outside of Toledo, and the Count was a very wealthy, beloved landowner. The work is enormous and filled with color – white, blacks, red, yellows. In it, El Greco portrays an upper world with saints and cherubs welcoming the Count into heaven, while below, the gentry gather behind a beautifully garbed priest and a bishop who are holding the body of the fallen Count. El Greco painted his ten-year-old son into the front row, his elegantly detailed hand reaching out and touching the robe of the priest. And he put his own self portrait there, too, in the front row among the gentry. He is the only one in the painting looking directly out at the viewer. His hand is also prominent and delicately crafted. It is a majestic work of art.

Since he certainly wasn't Jewish, why did I mention El Greco at all? For two reasons: to give one a sense of the fervor of the church in Toledo for one thing, but primarily to enable me to get back to his house. He moved into this house in 1585, just as he was working on that mural. The house is lovely, as such old homes go. One enters into a spacious courtyard which fills with a sort of yellowish sunlight. It is this color that typifies the city ... in the spring time of year, anyway. It is this ocher-like color that washes over his paintings of religious figures.

To the right is a small bedroom furnished from the period, and an alcove used as a personal chapel; to the left is the kitchen, replete with oven-hearth and 16th century utensils. Upstairs are several bedrooms with beds and chairs and suitcases from the period. No one over 95 pounds could possibly sleep or sit on any of this minute furniture. El Greco paintings line every wall. While other visitors are "ooing and aahing," I can hardly stand to look at the yellowish pallor of these death mask works. There is no this-world joy in any of his art on display here.

A balcony connects one side of the upstairs to the other. The house is isolated from the street by surrounding high walls, but, here in the back of the house, inside those walls, is a pleasant garden area and a water well. The guide tells us that there is a tunnel beneath the house. We express an interest. And now the story takes on its Jewish significance.

In 1360, King Pedro the Cruel gave special permission to his closest advisor one Samuel Levi ibn Abulafia to build this house. He was Pedro's chief tax collector and also treasurer to the king. Thanks to his administrative talents, he had made King Pedro enormously wealthy and the kingdom the most successful in all of Castile. The house is located one block from El Transito, a block still named Calle Samuel Levi. And since he also funded the construction of El Transito, it was originally named HaLevi Synagogue.

Now, while King Pedro did permit Samuel Levi to build the house, he did not know that Samuel had built a tunnel under it, a tunnel that ran into the Juderia and connected with other homes there. Several years after the house was completed, one of its builders informed the king about the tunnel.

The story goes that King Pedro went to the house, entered the tunnel, and found gold there. Without asking as to whether the gold belonged to Samuel or to the Jewish community (which is most likely since Jews often had to give great sums to the king), Pedro accused him of stealing gold that belonged to the crown, had him executed, and seized all of his wealth. And so it is that the home stolen from Samuel Levi ibn Abulafia the Jew by the king whom he had made rich and successful is revered today as La Casa de El Greco – the very popular Spanish painter ... who was really a Greek ... who had only rented it ... from people to whom it never belonged!

Toledo is an enigma! It is never what it seems to be. It is a city of irony. The greatest Jewish city in the world in the 11th century, has but a handful of Jews living there today, has a Jew's home that is named for a Greek who never owned it, and has a synagogue with no outside Jewish identifying marks. Some of the ironies are more subtle. For instance: Toledo was a town renown for its Talmudic academies, yet it also contained the largest Karaite population in the world. (See, “Rabbinites vs. Karaites” in the Teachings section of this blog.)

Less than 100 miles away in Cordoba, Maimonides is lionized as the intellectual giant of the ages. His statue and a hotel in his name are landmarks to his fame and to the reverence in which he is held. Toledo, in the 13th century, was ironically the seat of an anti-Maimonides movement. The philosopher, they maintained, had not defended the faith in his magnum opus – Guide for the Perplexed. They claim he had sold out to Aristotelianism. The anti-Maimunists gained great support among the intellectuals of Europe for about 200 years ... and the fur did fly between them and Rambam's devotees. That the greatest Jewish city in Spain should cultivate those who would disparage the greatest Jewish thinker of the age is just another subtle ironic sidebar.

Third major Jewish irony, Toledo was a seat of rationalism. Translators, commentators, Talmudists, financiers, all gravitated to this place and flourished here. Yet, this city was also a fountainhead of the earliest forms of non-rational Jewish mysticism. A few miles up the road a man named Moses de Leon is said to have written the prime text of Jewish mysticism called the Zohar – the Brightness or the Light. The work was ascribed to a 2nd century Pharisee, but realists and legalists don’t usually do spiritualism and mysticism. And, folks who lived in the 2nd century don’t usually put 12th century Spanish idiomatic expressions into their works.

The final irony is not Jewish at all. It has to do with Toledo’s Cathedral. It was in this church that Juana, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, and her overly adored prince Philipe were proclaimed successors to the throne of Spain after the death of her parents. But, remember, even before Ferdinand died, Cardinal Cisneros was asked to keep an eye on daughter Juana. Cisneros helped her son depose his madre loca. Cisneros defends the empire by denying the rightful heir her place. Then, as a staunch supporter of the Inquisition, he had been in the forefront of driving the Jews out of Spain during the reign of Isabella. However, Cisneros wanted to publish a polyglot Bible and he needs Jews who can translate languages and who know Hebrew. So, he invites numerous Jewish scholars back to Spain – Toledo actually – under a promise of protection. Then, this Cisneros who wants a strong throne so as to ensure a unified Catholic church ... in this very Cathedral – the central church of the capital of all of Catholic Spain – Cardinal Cisneros, the most powerful figure in the kingdom, builds a separate chapel for the Mozarabes – those Christians who developed a separate form of the Mass while living under Moslem rule! Sectarianism in the name of unity. An interesting, ironic wow.

Well, I'm glad we got all that ironied out!