A town in northern Spain is preparing to hold its first Passover seder since 1492.
The ritual dinner will take place in the old town center of Ribadavia on March 25, the first seder night, and is being organized by the municipality’s tourism department in partnership with the Center for Medieval Studies, a Ribadavia-based association that researches the history of Iberian Jews prior to their expulsion during the Spanish Inquisition.
The public is invited; a seat costs about $40, and the city expects a few dozen people will attend.
The project is aimed at increasing tourism to Ribadavia. Like many Spanish cities, Ribadavia used to have a sizable Jewish population before the Inquisition. Since the 1990s, several cities and towns in Spain and Portugal have undertaken tourist projects that highlight their Jewish past.
In 1997, Judith Cohen, a scholar of Sephardic Jewry, wrote that Ribadavia had two Jewish households remaining. — jta