Bilboa in the Basque country is a large and beautiful city, but I spent only one day there. In fact, I had come the long way from Madrid, not to see Bilboa but the nearby town of Vitoria.
I had read more than twenty-five years ago about a moving event related to the former Jewish community of Vitoria.
In 1492 when the Jews of Vitoria along with the rest of the Jews of Spain were expelled from the country, they came to an agreement with the town elders under which they turned over the town their cemetery as well as land nearby, with the provision that the people would never build on the cemetery.
The people of Vitoria kept their obligation for hundreds of years. In 1851 when the town was extended and some work was begun in the cemetery grounds, the authorities ordered the digging to be discontinued immediately. The town’s people also developed friendly relations with the Jews of Bayonne, across the border in southern France. The latter considered themselves descendants of the Jews who had been exiled from Vitoria.
However, in 1952 the authorities felt that they could no longer observe the agreement and they asked the Jewish community of Bayonne to release them from the promise. The Jews were ready to do this, but stipulated that the remains of the buried be collected and reinterred in a common grave with a monument recording the history of the cemetery. An agreement to this effect was signed on June 27, 1952, four hundred and sixty years to the day since the first agreement between the town and the Jews, going into exile, had been made.
In 1952 when the agreement was made it was reported in the press. Jewish newspapers which stressed and appreciated the extraordinary fact that the people of Vitoria had kept their word for 460 years, did not discuss the question whether from a religious point of view the Jews of Bayonne could have made the above decision.
Last year at an exhibition of Victor Laredo’s photos of Jewish landmarks in Spain, at the Spanish National Tourist Office in New York, I saw for the first time a picture of the monument which was erected on the grounds of the former Jewish cemetery in Vitoria. It shows a Star of David and tells in short the story of the two agreements. The picture of the monument was also included in Laredo’s book “Sephardic Spain.” When I saw this picture I decided to see the monument for myself on my next visit to Spain.
Not long after I arrived in Bilbao, I took a bus to Vitoria, which is about an hour’s ride away. When I came there I immediately asked for directions to Judimendi which means “Mountain of the Jews” (Mendi means mountain in Basque). This is the name of Vitoria’s Jewish cemetery hill similar to the designation “Montjuich” for the Jewish cemetery hills in Barcelona and Gerona. The area of the former cemetery has retained the name Judimendi.
I had no difficulty in finding the monument. It is located in the front yard of the school. The school was not in session and the gate of the yard was closed. i was afraid that I would have to content myself with looking at the monument from afar, but luckily the janitor was in. After I explained to him what I wanted, he opened the gate for me and waited there until I was ready to leave.
Having visited Judimendi, I walked for some time through those streets which, according to the new “Jewish Guide to Spain,” were once inhabited by Jews. Then I returned to Bilbao.
There are no Jews in Bilbao and I did not expect to meet any, but one never knows…
At the airport while waiting for the plane to Madrid, I asked a man whether he, too, was going there.
I asked him in Spanish and he answered in that language. He replied that he was going to Madrid and added that he was not a Spaniard.
We started a conversation. He said that he was from Salonika and had come to Spain to buy iron. After I told him that I had come from New York, he inquired whether my father had been born in the U.S. I said that he was born in Poland, and we continued to converse.
“You speak Spanish very well. Where did you learn the language?” I asked.
“I am a Sefardi Jew,” he answered to my great surprise.
“Shalom Alechem. I, too, am Jewish,” I exclaimed with joy.
“I know,” the man said, a broad smile spreading over his face.
“I felt it and in order to be sure I asked you where your father came from…”
The Jewish Press, Friday, November 23, 1979