Could a former bar be one of Spain's lost medieval synagogues?

The rambling, 14th-century building that sits off a narrow alley in the historic heart of Utrera, its patio walls furred with moss and its inner ones painted pugnacious shades of purple and orange, has led a long and varied existence.

Over the centuries, it has served the Andalucían city as a hospital, a home for abandoned children, a restaurant and, in its final incarnation, a bar.

Before all that, however, it may have been the synagogue where Utrera’s once-large Jewish community worshipped more than 500 years ago.

After months of research and surveying, a team of experts brought in by the city council has begun its search for what could be one of the largest of Spain’s very few surviving medieval synagogues.

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References to the lost temple go back to the early 17th century. In his 1604 history of Utrera, Rodrigo Caro, a local priest, historian and poet, described an area of the city centre as it had been in earlier centuries, writing: “In that place, there were only foreign and Jewish people … who had their synagogue where the Hospital de la Misericordia now stands.”

The hospital was founded in 1492 – the same year in which Spain’s Jews were expelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella after a century of persecution.

“That’s the first mention we have,” said Miguel Ángel de Dios, one of the archaeologists working on the project.

“Luckily, the building has survived over the years – basically because it’s always been in use – even as a bar. It’s quite weird to walk into the building and see it painted like a pub. It’s very colourful and makes quite an impression. But that’s exactly why it’s survived.”

Should a medieval synagogue be found hidden beneath the gaudy paint and multiple modifications, it would be one of the precious few medieval ones to have endured, along with the likes of El Tránsito and Santa María la Blanca in Toledo, the Córdoba synagogue, Corpus Christi in Segovia and the Sinagoga del Agua in Úbeda. As some of the names suggest, synagogues were often turned into Roman Catholic churches.

The property, which had stood abandoned for two decades before it was bought by Utrera city council in 2018, has been divided up and repurposed countless times over its lengthy and eclectic life.

“We’ve noted three different phases in the building and have identified the walls and floors we’re going to examine to try to confirm the existence of the synagogue,” said De Dios.

“We’ve surveyed the site and found walls that fit, walls that don’t, and some odd things such as different heights between what’s inside and what’s outside.”

De Dios, who is working with fellow archaeologist Rocío López Serena and the architect Antonio Jaramillo, is now searching for evidence to corroborate Caro’s history.

“There are a whole lot of things that are always in a synagogue, just like there are things you always find in a church or a mosque,” he said.

“There should be a mikveh, or ritual bath, somewhere outside the prayer room and some kind of structure for the women’s gallery.”

And of course, he added, “finding a menorah would be like turning up an ID card”.

But De Dios is realistic and professionally dubious over some of the claims made about the as yet undiscovered synagogue.

“If it does turn out to be a synagogue, we’ll have to see what kind of state it’s in and whether the walls are the original ones of the prayer room, or if they’re later remodellings that could even have been built around or on top of the original walls,” he said.

“I’d be very cautious about any talk of this being the second biggest surviving synagogue in Spain, but it could possibly be one of the biggest.”

Utrera’s mayor, José María Villalobos, said the discovery of the synagogue could bring the city cultural, civic and economic benefits.

“I think it would help us to understand ourselves a bit better by understanding Utrera’s past as a place where different people and different cultures lived alongside each other,” he said. “Having such a special building would also be an important boost for cultural and heritage tourism, especially as we’re only 20 minutes from Seville.”

The search for the synagogue comes amid what De Dios sees as a wider attempt to connect Spain with its Jewish past, “and look into the impact it had on our historical and archaeological heritage, on our culture, our customs and even on our food”.

For the past 26 years, a group of towns and cities across Spain – the Red de Juderías de España (Network of Spain’s Jewish Quarters) – has been seeking to preserve and promote the historical, cultural, and architectural legacy of the country’s long-exiled Jews.

In 2015, Spain’s parliament passed a law offering citizenship to the descendants of the Jews expelled in 1492 in an attempt to atone for what the then government termed a “historic mistake”. More than 130,000 people applied for citizenship under the scheme before it ended in 2019.

“It’s odd but it’s taken a long time for people to start looking at the history of Jewish people in Spain,” said De Dios.

“It’s kind of been left to one side and more study and attention has been given to the Islamic culture that also left its mark here in Andalucía.”

Isaac Benzaquén, the president of Spain’s Federation of Jewish communities, said the discovery of the synagogue – if confirmed – would yield “another trace of the long and intense co-existence” that came to an end in 1492.

Such discoveries, he added, “reveal the social and cultural richness of Spain’s past while also showing the Jewish community the deep roots of our culture in this country”.