Our Story is about You…
 

“Mutatis Mutandis” goes the Latin phrase -

Change only the name, and the story is about you…

As a first-time visitor to Granada in September of 2004, I was both awestruck, humbled & fascinated,as many are, by the elegance, beauty, ease and seemigly very deep and ancient history with which Granada carries herself. It is a unique, and very memorable place - even at first glance.

I will admit I was much taken in by the rich and complex culture & impressive acheivements of a 750 year Moorish, Muslim Andalucia. Likewise & equally, one cannot be anything but impressed - for very different reasons - with the later, and in some cases most terrible achievements and conquests of the Medieval Christians. These two great Faiths, Cultures and Histories have woven the filaments between the fabric of our modern world - in every field from Philosophy to Philately, from Finance to Food, Argumentation to Algorithm.

The Alhambra herself, and what she represents, defines the limit of what’s possible when Faith meets Science in the Old World, in my view.

What, then, here, of the Jew?

How could it be that for all of my hunting, and within all of this wonderful, colourful, rich accounting of History, that i could not find the word ´Jew´ written or mentioned anywhere in Granada, in any language, except in reference to their expulsion or conversion?

No inscriptions, tombs, texts, street names, cemetaries, wells, signs, Synagoges - nothing.

Were the Jews not here, in Garnata-al-Jehud, before it was Granada - before the Visigoths, the Moors, or the Christians? Were these same great empires not built upon the skill, talent & stamina of their Jewish cousins?

Could it be that more than 2 millenia of Jewish Learning, Language, Translation, Poetry, Philosophy, Science, Thought & Faith had simply not reached these hills?

Good questions indeed, and I am very happy to have given the last 15 years of my life and working career to trying to find answers to who the Jews of Andalucia were, how they were, what happened to them, and perhaps most importantly - why?

Join me, or my charming Hebrew-speaking colleague Maryla at your leisure, to take a whistle-stop ride through 2000 years of the hidden History of Jewish Granada.

We look forward to seeing you.

Yours,

Baruch Fahey

Historian & Friend of Jewish History.