Sofer Synagogue

We continue our tour along Reyes Católicos Street. A few steps away you will find a small arch and, next to it, a square that keeps under its feet one of the secrets of the old Jewish quarter of Toledo. Look at the ground. This wooden framework allows us to see the remains of the old Sofer Synagogue, built around the year 1190 and destroyed in 1391, during the violent attacks that the Jewish quarter suffered. For centuries, the synagogue disappeared from sight, although its memory remained in medieval documents, where it continued to be used as a reference to locate nearby homes. At the end of the 15th century, the mentions disappeared and its location ended up being forgotten. We had to wait more than five hundred years to find it again. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Toledo City Council planned to convert this site into a cobblestone plaza. But previous archaeological excavations forced plans to change: a real treasure appeared beneath the ground. The archaeologists discovered cisterns, a fountain, remains of walls of medieval houses, vaulted basements and, most importantly, part of the foundation of the ancient Sofer Synagogue. A particularly interesting space also appeared whose structure is reminiscent of a mikveh, the ritual bath used in Jewish tradition for purifications. He looks at the ground again. What…

Open in the map