Jewish Heritage Trip to Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar Blog

We spent Friday and Shabbat in Gibraltar. Known for its indigenous monkeys, we started our tour seeing and interacting with them.

Ultimately, our purpose in arriving here for Shabbat was to celebrate the holiest day of the week with an historic Jewish community which remains vital and vibrant. Many of the historic Jewish sites we saw in Spain were alive until the late 15th century but were now in ruins and a memory of the past.

Gibraltar has a Jewish history of over three hundred years. Some of the families have a lineage that traces back to the early years. A Sephardic community - It has four synagogues similar in their traditional Orthodox religious orientation. We were told that the synagogue communities all get along with each other. There is no religious strife in Gibraltar.

On Friday night, we attended one particular synagogue for Kabbalat Shabbat. While the basic structure of the Siddur is similar to an Ashkenazic Siddur, phrases vary in familiar prayers, such as the Amidah, Yigdal, Kaddish and more. In the local synagogues, women sit in a balcony above the men's section.

On Shabbat morning, a number of our group attended another synagogue where a Bar Mitzvah was taking place. We were impressed at how much of the service was led competently by young people. One could notice the Gabbai tapping the outer parchment of the Torah scroll varying the depiction of his fingers and hands. He was displaying the Cantilation notes in advance to the Torah reader.

In addition to the four synagogues, a youth service took place in a Talmud Torah school building, where older children mentored younger children. We celebrated our Shabbat meals in that building and enjoyed the delights prepared by local kosher catering. At the end of Shabbat, we conducted an outdoor Ramah style Havdalah in the courtyard. Soon after the conclusion of Shabbat, some of us went back for a fun filled kumzitz.

Tomorrow, we reenter Spain for sites in Seville.

Rabbi Morrison standing in front of the Rock of Gibraltar

One of the famous monkees of Gibraltar