The small town of Híjar, in the northern Spanish region of Aragon, has been granted €500,000 from the EU for the rehabilitation and restoration of its medieval Jewish quarter, including the medieval synagogue, now St. Anthony church.
The announcement was made in early May at a news conference by the regional counselor for Territorial Articulation, Mobility, and Housing.
“We have a very specific objective: the rehabilitation of the area of the Jewish quarter, and we are going step by step,” Híjar Mayor Luis Carlos Marquesán was quoted as saying by the local media outlet La Comarca. “We needed a boost, [and with] €500,000, we can already think of more ambitious actions.”
Lucía Conte, professor of Medieval and Spanish Jewish history and heritage at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, told JHE that the funds would be used to rehabilitate houses, streets, and the urban infrastructure of Híjar’s medieval Jewish quarter. At the same time, she’s working with the London-based Foundation for Jewish Heritage (FJH) to create a master plan, which will be a roadmap for future actions in Híjar.
According to La Comarca, the rehabilitation plans call for the medieval synagogue to be the core of the cultural, touristic, and socio-economic urban development. All work is to be concluded in 2026.
“There are very few synagogues that survived from the medieval period, which makes Híjar’s synagogue, with its unique wall murals, all the more remarkable,” the FJH’s CEO Michael Mail said in a statement. “We applaud the mayor’s exciting vision for the future use of the building and are delighted to be playing a role in developing the project.”
The EU Funds have been allocated via the Department of Territorial Articulation, Mobility, and Housing of the Government of Aragon. These funds are part of the Residential Restoration and Social Housing program from the Department’s Recovery, Transformation, and Resiliency plan. They are part of the Next Generation EU funding program for the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Híjar and another twelve small towns in Aragon will receive €500,000 for their projects. The bigger settlements of Huesca and Teruel will receive €1 million each, and Zaragoza, the region’s capital, €6,5 million, for a total of €16 million. Híjar and the other towns were selected after the region launched a public call in December 2021. The Hijar municipality proposed its medieval Jewish quarter as the center for this rehabilitation, as it is considered a strategic area for the cultural and touristic development of the town.
The synagogue of Híjar was built in the early 15th century in Mudejar style, a fusion of Muslim and Christian influences typical in Spain from the 13th to the 15th century. It is the only medieval synagogue remaining in Aragon and one of only five in all of Spain. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, it was transformed into a church, as were many other synagogues in the country. The church was dedicated to St. Anthony the Abbot, and today, though still a church, the synagogue is known as St. Anthony’s Synagogue.
In 2017, the works at the site revealed striking evidence of the building’s history, including the foundations of the bimah and wall paintings showing a menorah and Hebrew inscriptions. Following those discoveries, in 2018, the church/synagogue was declared an Aragonese Cultural Heritage site.
However, as we wrote in December 2021, despite the urgent repair and archaeological work carried out between 2017-2020, the medieval synagogue was among the 12 threatened heritage sites in Europe shortlisted for Europa Nostra’s Seven Most Endangered program for 2022.
It was shortlisted mainly because of the urgent need of protection and preservation of the medieval wall paintings found during the first stage of restoration works in 2017. It did not make it to the final list of the seven most endangered sites announced in late March.)