Girona and Besalu

Girona and Besalu. Two medieval cities that have been relatively untouched by time. Both have seen their share of strife, social unrest, and persecution, especially among the Jewish populations.

Having been brought up by a renounced catholic father and an agnostic mother, my own religious background is incongruous at best. Raised in the south, I was never really exposed to Judaism, knowing only limitedly that it existed and having no clue as to the histories of its people or their beliefs. It wasn’t until I was 21, visiting Dachau outside of Munich, Germany that I began to wonder. Who are these people that have been so inauspiciously oppressed for the better part of two thousand years, and what is it that repeated societies throughout history have against them?

To this day I can not understand the consistent hate that seems to ebb and flow in the direction of these people. They exist seemingly peacefully in a community and then they are subject to expulsion and genocide. In Besalu they were given less than two weeks to completely remove themselves after being falsely accused of causing the plague through poisoning the food and water. In Girona, it seems, there was no time to escape, hundreds of people being murdered with little or no warning during the countrywide “cleansing” of 1391-92.

Today in Gerona a modest museum filled with tombstones and memorabilia commemorates their struggle, a lovely courtyard with a Star of David in the center the only thing remaining of the former synagogue. Besalu is in the process of excavating their synagogue, covered for hundreds of years in modern rubble and plumbing materials - as it would have remained were it not for the fortunate discovery of Spain’s only remaining Mickva (holy bath) while drilling for a well. These sites, while lovely and worthwhile, seem little consolation for thousands of years of religious persecution.

I’m not a Jew, I have less than a handful of Jewish friends, and I still to this day know almost nothing about one of the oldest surviving faiths in the world. What I do know is this… My grandfather fought in World War II, was a POW in a German concentration camp, and returned home weighing less than a hundred pounds. When asked of his experiences, I’m not sure that he ever spoke more than a few words. But he fought, was imprisoned, and was returned.

When I think of his sacrifice and that of millions of others, I can’t help but get angry. The concept of war - futile and pointless, driven by greed, ego or insanity – tends so often to be started by a difference of opinion. Faith, religion, color, creed… At the end of the day, I have never understood war – which to me is just community approved murder – and I can’t see that I ever will. But I loved my grandfather, respected his decision to fight in a cause he saw worthy, and I approve of that conviction.

I guess that is exactly the point. Conviction. The Jews have kept theirs through so much hardship, through death and disruption, through infill and destruction. And when I stood today in a spot that was once dedicated to the purification of an entire faith of men and women, I can’t help but feel connected to it, to them. Regardless of my faith, or lack thereof, today in the Mickva I felt purified. Cleansed. Because I know that respect is the universal common denominator.