The Jewish history of Mombeltrán has been researched and documented, though not in great detail. This is an area I continue to gather information about through research as well as seeking oral histories as I become more embedded in the town. In 1391, massacres swept centres of Jewish life across 70+ cities including the major cities of Cordoba, Sevilla, Valencia and Toledo.

Mombeltrán is located 80 km from the historic Jewish center of Ávila, where Moses de León, author of the Zohar famously lived. Ávila was a well-known safe haven from the antisemitic laws that defined the early reconquista and was spared the pogroms of 1391. While many Jews converted or fled to Morocco at this time, others traveled out of the cities into more provincial towns and it was during this time that the Jewish community established itself in Mombeltrán. It was attractive in part because it is important stop on trade routes because of its location at the base of Puerta del Pico, which was used to access to the highlands of the Sierra de Gredos as early as the Roman occupation of the region, making it a key location for collecting taxes and duties on goods.

For approximately 100 years, Jews lived here and were formally acknowledged in one of the most prosperous aljamas, or autonomous minority religious communities in the area. Jewish work was comprised of the typical tax-collection and providing financial services for the local Dukedom of Albuquerque, as well as being such major players in the weekly trading market that the town had to petition move the day so as not coincide with Shabbat.

The Jewish community settled around the market square, known as La Corredera. I have not yet seen or heard of documentation confirming the exact location of various community buildings, but at least one local historian claims that the synagogue and butcher were both located close to or in the same location as the Hospital de San Andrés, which serves as the town museum, tourist hub and cultural center.

It has also been noted that Jews participated in various agricultural activities including winemaking, and that there are records showing Jews with farms who sold the land to non-Jewish neighbors upon expulsion in 1492. At least one of these farm-owning Jews, Alonso Diaz de Acuña, upon arriving in Morocco, turned around promptly and undertook a harrowing journey back to Mombeltrán as a newly minted converso and repurchased his land in the town. It is reported that across the valley, the number of conversos (those who stayed rather than flee) was particularly high.

For me, it is this story that captures my imagination the most. In diaspora, Jews were often been barred from agriculture and land-ownership and thus, kept from building the close relationship to the land that runs so deep in our tradition. I think about Alonso, who sacrificed family and resources to return to his farm, choosing to hide or abandon his Jewishness — we can never know. So many conversos, or crypto-Jews practiced in secret that I like to imagine him with his vines and trees, inviting friends to observe Tu B´Shvat or using his male lambs to create decoy sausages. Maybe he managed to keep tzitzit made with wool from sheep raised in the valley. Either way, this man sacrificed everything to return to this corner of the world that I have come to love so dearly. With our rich soils and pleasant microclimate, the Barranco de Las Cinco Villas feels like heaven on earth. It was his home, and even though he clearly didn’t want to convert — the journey to Morocco from the middle of Spain was made for the express purpose of avoiding forced conversion — maybe the privilege of living openly paled in comparison to the sense of place he had here.

…Or maybe he committed some crime or was fleeing debts…truly I cannot know, and that is emblematic of Jewish history here. (Sorry if I’m slandering you, Alonso, I’m just keeping it real.)

How many families that remain here were conversos? How many people carried on odd family traditions whose Jewish origins were long forgotten? How many knew? I can see the Hospital de San Andrés from my desk, I can see the Castle built during the golden era of Jewish life here. The mountains are the same, I prune Olives that have been a part of the economy for centuries, I eat wine grapes off the vine in the autumn. I can feel that I am not the first Jew to love this land, and I want to help others fall in love with it, too.