By: Jerome Socolovsky JTA March 26, 2003

MADRID, March 26 (JTA) — It was truly a historic find.

About 15 years ago, archivists examining several yellowed volumes of
notarial records in the city of Girona in northeastern Spain began
suspecting that the covers were lined with precious historical
documents.

They carefully picked apart the volumes and found a multitude of Hebrew
manuscripts embedded in the covers, including business records and other
contracts between Jews, and even a fragment from the Torah.

Researchers now suspect that another 162 books dating from the 15th and
16th centuries might also contain an unprecedented treasure of Judaica,
and believe that all the manuscripts can be recovered with the latest
technology. They are drawing up plans for an ambitious project to open
all of the books.

The documents could shed light on a thriving medieval Jewish community
that is believed to have been a center of Jewish mystical learning.

While nothing is certain until the delicate covers are disassembled, the
Girona historical archives could contain the biggest trove of medieval
Hebrew manuscripts ever found in Europe.

“The archives are very potent sources of information on the Jews of
Girona,” said Ansumpcio Hosta of the Centro Bonastruc Borta, a museum of
Jewish history in Girona. Bonastruc Borta is the name of the mystical
scholar Nachmanides in the Catalan language.

“There’s a multitude of information on the daily life of the Jews, on
who got married to whom, who bought what property and what kind of
trades they were in,” she said.

The unopened volumes could contain manuscripts that shed light on the
origins of Kabbalah itself, she added.

“It would really be a dream, because sources of that kind from that time
are very rare. That would really make us feel proud,” said Hosta, who
also is one of the leaders of an effort to recover the Jewish heritage
of Girona and other Spanish cities.

However, she added a note of caution: “It’s also possible we might find
lots of plain filler paper.”

Israeli scholar Yoel Rappel has told Israeli media that the volumes
could contain hitherto unseen pages of Kabbalah or writings of
Nachmanides, a finding that he said would be “tremendously significant.”

The Girona manuscripts are believed to have been left behind by the Jews
of the medium-sized city, located between Barcelona and the French
border.

Girona had a Jewish presence since at least the ninth century and was
the birthplace of Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, also known as Nachmanides or
the Ramban.

The community of at least 700 Jews began to suffer pogroms in 1331. Most
chose martyrdom when anti-Jewish riots fired up by anti-Semitic
preachers swept across Spain in 1391.

By 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decreed the expulsion of
Spain’s Jews, only around 100 Jews still lived in Girona. The last
synagogue and the remaining property owned by Jews then were sold to the
municipal notary.

Several years ago, researchers at the Provincial Historical Archive
began to suspect that something of interest was lining the covers of 165
yellowed notarial tomes.

The suspicions arose because the covers looked like they contained
filler paper, archivist Santi Soler said. But researchers also
remembered that several times before in Spanish historical libraries,
Hebrew documents had been found embedded inside book covers.

“We knew that a treasure might exist inside these covers because it was
common in those days to pad book covers with papers that weren’t seen as
having any use,” Soler said.

Indeed, the practice was part of the general spirit of the times, when
sacred Jewish objects were desecrated without qualms. Museums today
display tombstones stolen from Jewish cemeteries that were used as
washing tables and road pavements.

Soler said extracting the manuscripts from the remaining 162 volumes
would be “a long and painstaking process.” The fragments are extremely
fragile, and are glued to the binding. Even after successful removal, a
human touch is enough to make them disintegrate.

Hosta said negotiations are under way to raise money for the project,
which some reports have estimated could cost millions of dollars.

She said she expects most of the money to come from the Spanish
government, which has a generous budget set aside for projects that cast
a glimpse on the country’s Jewish heritage.

However, she added that “the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly.”

An exhibition of the extracted manuscripts is being planned for later
this year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2003 and is filed under history.