Catalonia and Provence
A crossroads of Sephardic and Ashkenazic history and traditions. |
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| Southern France and Northeastern Spain were a single culture in the
age of the troubadours and the crusaders, speaking the same language,
singing
the same songs, and often ruled by the same feudal lords. Jews traveled back
and forth between Barcelona and Carcasonne, Avignon and Gerona, carrying
Ashkenazic culture to Spain and Sephardic culture to France. The result was
a
remarkable flourishing of scientific and religious ideas, with important
developments in the fields of mysticism and philosophy. |
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 | With a history dating back to the beginning of Roman Gaul,the Jewish community was a notable component in the social fabric of southern medieval urban society. It played an important economic role in the dissemination of techniques, and in the movement of goods and ideas throughout Europe. |
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| After the fall of Masada - the last citadel of Israel - in the year A.D.73, many fugitives came to Gaul and settled in the towns of Arles, Vienne and Narbonne, bringing with them the culture and religion of the Jewish people. Under Christianity,
Provencal Judaism alternately fourished and declined. Even after the the
expulsion of the Jews from Languedoc and Provence, the Popes of Avignon welcomed and protected them; as a result, the Jews
were continuously present in the community, worshiping according to their
own peculiar rites and speaking their own Judeo-Provencal language until the threshold of modern times. |
