Girona · Spain
Girona, Spain
Carrer de la Força is the main artery of Girona's medieval Jewish quarter, where a community of roughly 1,000 people lived and worked during the 13th century. The street follows the old Roman road within the Força Vella walls — a location chosen by the first Jewish families who arrived in Girona in 890 AD and formalized by the early 12th century.
From the late 13th century onwards, increasing restrictions forced Girona's Jewish community into progressively narrower spaces. These alleys — some barely a metre wide — are the physical evidence of persecution, with walls moved inward, doorways sealed, and movement restricted by law and architecture alike.
Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman Gerondi, known as the Ramban, was born on this street and became the Great Rabbi of Catalonia. In the 13th century, he founded one of Europe's most important centres of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalistic learning, transforming Girona into a beacon of Jewish spiritual thought—until his forced departure in 1267.
A 15th-century synagogue building now housing the Museum of Jewish History, with 11 thematic exhibitions on medieval Catalan Jewish life. The museum is named after Nahmanides (Bonastruc ça Porta in Catalan), Girona's greatest medieval rabbi and a towering figure in Jewish mysticism.
After the 1492 expulsion, the Jewish quarter was physically sealed — new houses built over old structures, doorways bricked up, windows closed forever. The irony of erasure: this act of destruction paradoxically preserved the medieval buildings beneath, the stones keeping their secrets until modern recovery began.
A restored walled garden at the city's highest point offering the only elevated view of the medieval Jewish quarter's layout. From here, the density, enclosure, and architecture of the Call become visible — the narrow streets, compressed buildings, and defensive walls that contained one community's world for six centuries.
The cathedral looms directly above the Jewish quarter, a physical manifestation of religious and political power. From this seat of authority, the Bishop issued the edicts, restrictions, and ultimately the orders that confined and expelled the Jewish population.
Since the 1980s, Girona has actively recovered its Jewish heritage through the Museum of Jewish History, interpretive plaques, and the annual Call de Girona cultural programme. What was deliberately erased is being carefully remembered.
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