Where did they go?

The “Marketing Convivencia” article further supported the notion that we have been discussing of molding history to create a curated public image. Just as the myth of a historically Christian Spain has been used to shape national identity, the history of Spain’s Jews has been revamped and retold, this time with the purpose of enticing and impressing foreign tourists. Spain developed tours specifically to market cities that once held vibrant Sephardic Jewish communities. However, they do not go on to elaborate what happened to those communities, or how Spain’s Jews live today. They market to foreign Jewish tourists, inviting them to come and view their own history and the culture of the past, all while ignoring the needs of the Jews who are still their. I was particularly struck by this quote: “While the museum director lamented the lack of space they could dedicate to the exhibition of (past) Jewish life in Spain, the Jewish community petitioned for permission to utilize either this synagogue or Santa Maria la Blanca (a second Toldeo synagogue that was transformed into a church in the fifteenth century) for Jewish religious ritual.” The community’s own resources were being taken away from them in the present in order to put the past on display for tourists.