Empty Places: When Cities Forget

I’m working on a deep study of a single block in the center of Rome—”deep” literally, in that it digs down into the block’s archaeological layers in search of stories, but also “deep” in the conceptual sense, in that it reveals something about how places help us remember and, if we pay attention, keep us from forgetting.

I was reminded of this aspect of place during my recent trip to Andalucia, in southern Spain. My fellow travelers and I were in search of the brilliant cultural interplay that characterized this part of the Iberian peninsula in the Middle Ages: Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish lives overlapping, producing great works of scholarship, literature, and architecture and in some tellings offering a model of harmonious co-existence. Scholars debate how harmonious this co-existence really was, but the stamp on cities like Toledo, Cordoba, and Granada is unmistakeable. Their greatest monuments take your breath away—and the silences can punch you in the gut.

Perhaps not surprisingly, because the Jewish community never actually held the reins of power, its traces are few and hard to find. A handful of recovered synagogues and several modest museums constitute the imprint of Jewish presence. Attentive visitors will note the bronze plaques that fuse the Hebrew letters for “Sefarad” (Spain) into the shape of the Iberian peninsula, presumably marking sites of note in Jewish history but frustratingly absent of any interpretation. Someone Jewish lived here, or something relevant to the Jews happened here, you assume. But what?

We took a tour of Seville by bike with Carlos, a native who had recently graduated from the university with a degree in European history and was anticipating the start of his new job in local government, most likely in the heritage sector. He was smart, informed, charming, happy to answer our questions. After three hours of pedaling and listening to stories of the city’s flowering under Muslim rule, the Catholic monarchs of the Golden Age, colonial exploration, and post-colonial challenges, I asked Carlos about the Jewish history of Seville. I was aware that it had one—my hotel was in the former Jewish quarter, known (rather ominously) as Santa Cruz. I had seen the towering cross in the center of its main plaza, hovering over one of those diminutive “Sefarad” plaques. But I had seen no other trace of the Jewish presence.

Carlos was, again, informed and generous with his knowledge. He reminded us that we were near the offices of the Spanish Inquisition where (in case we didn’t know) many Jews were taken for interrogation. He told us of the pogroms of 1391, murderous riots against Jews that had begun in Seville a full century before the famed expulsion of Ferdinand and Isabella, the one that finally banished all Jews, along with all Muslims, from Spain if they would not convert. And he acknowledged that, when Seville tells its history, the Jewish part of it often drops out. But why, I wanted to know.

Because, he explained, there is nothing left to see.

It was a true statement, an obvious statement, and yet I felt stunned. It wasn’t so much because of Seville and what did or did not remain, or because of the echos with more recent attempts at cultural erasure I head read about and studied, but because it immediately called up what was happening at home: the Trump administration’s attempt to white-wash American history by removing anything ugly or complicated from our museums, national parks, and historic sites, minimizing the visibility of events and their victims.

I knew, or I think I knew, that erasure was the administration’s goal—out of sight, out of mind, gone for good. But the force of that intention didn’t really hit me until I rode a bicycle across Seville. Nothing left to see of a people meant nothing left to say about them either, even if you were a local historian and tourguide. It was a chilling realization of just how thorough such erasures can be—and an urgent reminder of why we need to excavate, study, and write about the past. This work may be our strongest bulwark against a future of amnesia and lies.

Detail of the Sefarad plaque, part of a project of the Red de Juderías de España (Network of Jewish Quarters in Spain).

The Great Mosque at Cordoba: Roman temple turned church turned mosque and then again church.

The Ibn Shoshan synagogue, Toledo, converted into a church, Santa María la Blanca, after the pogroms of 1391; today it is a museum.

Plaza de Santa Cruz, Seville, with “Sefarad” plaque installed on the pedestal.