The Archbishopric of Toledo will not give up, for the time being, the Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca – one of the most visited monuments in this city -, to the Federation of Spanish Jewish Communities as it has requested. A petition that the Spanish Jews have been formulating since 1992, when the Vatican ordered the then archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Marcelo González Martín, to start talks with the State of Israel that did not fruition.
The last contacts between the current archbishop, Braulio Rodríguez, and the president of the Federation of Spanish Jewish Communities, Isaac Querub, were in November 2016. Since then, Querub has been making public statements claiming this historic building built in the century XII.
The Archbishop of Toledo has settled the matter on Thursday with a communique in which it suggests to the Jewish Community to go to the State to request the transfer of another important synagogue of Toledo, the one of Tránsito, very close to the one of Santa Maria the White.
Tickets, Franc and women of bad life
The Archbishopric of Toledo also wanted to clarify that this synagogue, transformed into a Christian temple in the fourteenth century, became part of the assets of the Catholic Church in 1929 during the reign of Alfonso XIII, reason why denied that it was General Franco Who gave it to her. In addition, the church hierarchy of Toledo declines to maintain the ownership of the synagogue for a collection purpose.
The entrance costs 2.5 euros but various groups and tourist agencies benefit from discounts. In addition, according to archbishopric data, the income obtained serves to maintain the synagogue itself, to pay for works in other temples and to pay religious figures.
The Santa María Blanca Synagogue, which over the centuries has also been used as a refuge for women repentant of their bad life, barracks and warehouse of the Royal Treasury, will remain a tourist attraction more than Toledo but in the hands of the Church , Not the Jewish Community. Curiously, it was Muslim and non-Jewish masons and masons who built it.