Although Santa María la Blanca has not been a synagogue since it was
seized and turned into a church at the beginning of the 15th century,
some feel the time has come for it to be returned to the Jewish
community.
Isaac Querub, the president of Spain’s Federation of Jewish Communities,
is calling on the archbishop of Toledo to demonstrate the church’s
commitment to interfaith relations through the symbolic gesture of
handing back the building.
More than five centuries after Ferdinand and Isabella ordered Spain’s Jews to convert or leave the country – and 42 years after Pope Paul VI repudiated antisemitism and
called for “mutual understanding and respect” between Roman Catholics
and Jews – Querub claims the Spanish church is lagging behind society
when it comes to atoning for the mistakes of the past.[...]
And the archdiocese of Toledo shows few signs of contemplating any
return of the building. In a three-page statement, it said the church’s
ownership of the now-deconsecrated building was “perfectly clear” and
that the government had restored Santa María la Blanca to the care of
the archdiocese through a local parish in 1929.[...]
Spain’s Jewish population numbers fewer than 100,000, most of whom live
in Madrid, Barcelona and Málaga. There was, Querub said, no Jewish
community in Toledo today but that was not the point; the federation was
not looking to reclaim Santa María la Blanca as a place of worship but
to use it as museum that finally acknowledges its roots and uses its
original name.
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