Sinagoga del Tránsito — Attraction in Toledo

Shame. Extremely disappointed with the staff. Visited the museum and noticed a young man who hid a "Palestine" sticker under his coat, then took taunting photos with his friends in front of the exhibited artifacts from the expelled Sephardic Jewish community this museum focuses on. I found it unbelievably disrespectful: I would never go to a Muslim Community museum with an Israel shirt and take "F You" photos to taunt and disrespect that community. Note there is NOTHING in the museum about Israel or Palestine or the conflict in the middle east so this behavior was directly targeting Jews, which was offensive to me as a Jewish person who came to Toledo and this museum in particular to connect to the rich heritage and history of my people.

When alerting a member of the staff (who hardly spoke English) to this, they said "this is okay, I don't see an issue". A second staff member (who also hardly spoke English) repeated the same thing, adding "this isn't a problem because it's a museum and not a synagogue". What?! Again, I dare any decent person to try this in a Muslim Community museum. I talked to another member of the staff (who didn't speak English at all) who said I should wait so I can complain officially. After several minutes they went away to look for either the young man or the first staff member so I could confront them (I am guessing, they didn't really explain what was happening). I was not going to stay and argue using Google Translate having already spent 15 minutes trying to explain myself to insensitive staff members. I left, upset and distraught.

This to me was a low point in my trip and extremely discouraging and disappointing to experience from the staff of a museum which in my opinion is supposed to treat its subjects with some level of honor. I am ashamed and offended, the people running the museum should not be in charge if they can't find the fault in this situation. I will never set foot...

The El Tránsito Synagogue is a remarkable historical site that is well worth visiting. The quality of the synagogue restoration and associated museum exhibit are a testament to the hard work and dedication of the government and scholarly community. Unfortunately, the quality of the English language services leaves much to be desired. The English language audio guide is not accessed though an app or internet web site, but rather through what appears to be an intranet site on the museum's wifi network. The posted instructions are poor and the ticket clerk knew too little English to be helpful. When it appeared that my phone couldn't get onto the network she simply walked away stating "no disponible," i.e., the wifi is not available. She was not willing to help any more. I was eventually able to access the audio with the help of a gentleman in the lobby, who may or may not have worked at the museum. I had to turn off my cellular signal and log onto the wifi in airplane mode. Otherwise when I tried to enter the local URL for the audio, my phone would go to a different website on the internet. All of the explanatory text in the exhibit was in Spanish, which would not have been too big a deal if I were able to use Google translate. However, that required an internet connection and my phone was in airplane mode. Why a museum that draws so many foreign visitors cannot hire staff that are fluent in English and provide English language translations of their exhibits is truly beyond my...

An amazing building. Part of the synagogue has preserved it's Hebrew and Arabic original decoration. It was a bit bittersweet the story of "The Keys of the Sephardim" that appears in the picture I have shared. Long time ago, the rulers of Spain and Portugal banned Judaism and the Sephardic diaspora started. The ones that remained suffered continual threats by the Catholic Inquisition, a very aggressive legal system and public humiliation. Those Crypto-Jews received the pejorative nickname "marrano", that means "pig". They are the ancestors of the Bnei Anusim (Hebrew: בני אנוסים ספרדיים, "Children of the coerced"). The ones that escaped the Iberian Peninsula brought with them the keys of the houses, with the hope that one day they will be back home in Spain and Portugal. Centuries later, some Sephardic descents, by joining Zionism and its Ashkenormativity, made the same crime to Palestinians during the 1948 events, when thousands of Palestinians suffered a similar forced displacement by IDF under the command of David Ben Guirion. That is why the 🗝️ is one of the symbols of resistance in Palestine. History is, again, repeating itself. And that makes me feel deeply...