How this relates to me?
Does the city Lleida or Lerida, in Catalunya ring a bell for Sephardic researchers?
There were two Jewish neighborhoods in the town – Cuirassa and Cuirassola – some 140km northwest of Barcelona.
The Lleida community was virtually destroyed in the 1391 riots, massacres and mass forced conversions; an attempt to reconstitute it years later never got very far.
There were Jewish communities in nearby villages as well – such as Alfés – which has numerous buildings with six-pointed symbols – una estrella de 6 puntes – above their entrance doors (see photos at left and below right). Some scholars and historians believe that these symbols were substituted for the six-pointed magen david.
In Converso communities elsewhere in the world – such as in New Mexico (according to Dr. Stanley Hordes and other historians), similar images are carved on gravestones.
Lleida’s archives, housed in the Cathedral, are a treasure trove…
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