Sephardi and Mizrahi: around the Mediterranean

The journey in one line

14 stops in Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Bosnia & Herzegovina so far. The first rung is 4 of them, and the list keeps growing.

For most of Jewish history the centre of gravity was not in northern Europe. It was around this sea. Toledo and Córdoba under Muslim and then Christian rule, Fez and Marrakesh in the mellahs, Salonica where Ladino was the language of the docks, Cairo where the Geniza was filling up with letters. This journey goes anticlockwise around the Mediterranean and does not stop in 1492. The expulsion from Iberia is the hinge, not the end. The exiles went to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, and the communities they joined were already old. Some of these places still have congregations. Some are museums now because the community is gone. The list says which is which.

Sephardi and Mizrahi history is the part of the Jewish story most often left out of European heritage lists. It is also where a great deal of the tradition was written: Maimonides in Córdoba and then Cairo, the kabbalists of Fez and Salonica, the poets of al-Andalus. The twentieth century emptied most of these communities. Salonica was deported in 1943. The Jews of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey left in waves between 1948 and the 1970s, for many reasons and under many pressures. Several of the buildings here are looked after by Muslim neighbours and by national governments. That is worth saying plainly. The Egyptian state paid for the Alexandria restoration. A Muslim curator hid the Sarajevo Haggadah from the Nazis. The care these places get is part of their history.

Spain is the easy run: Toledo, Córdoba and Girona are all reachable by train. Morocco pairs Fez and Marrakesh. Greece pairs Thessaloniki with Rhodes or Crete, though those are separate flights. Egypt and Turkey need more arrangement. The İzmir synagogues are mid restoration and open by arrangement rather than on fixed hours. The Alexandria synagogue is entered with identification and usually with notice. The Sarajevo Haggadah is shown on limited days. Check before you build a trip around it.

Where it goes

The stops, in order

What a visit means here. A recorded visit means entering the synagogue or museum itself, not the quarter around it. Walking through the Judería of Córdoba is not a visit to the synagogue.

1. 1

   Museo Sefardí, Synagogue of El Tránsito

   Sinagoga del Tránsito

   Toledo, Spain

   

   Samuel Ha-Levi built this synagogue around 1357 while serving the king of Castile. The plaster work carries Hebrew psalms and Arabic praise in the same wall. After 1492 it became a church, and it is now Spain's national museum of Sephardi history.

   What counts as a visit

   The prayer hall, the women's gallery and the museum galleries around it.

   Access

   A Spanish state museum. Closed on Mondays and on published public holidays. Checked 16 September 2026.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

2. 2

   Córdoba Synagogue

   Sinagoga de Córdoba

   Córdoba, Spain

   

   Built in 1315, this is one of only three medieval synagogues left in Spain and the only one in Andalusia. It is small, a single room with a women's gallery, and the walls are covered in Mudéjar plaster with Hebrew inscriptions. It stands in the Judería a short walk from where Maimonides was born.

   What counts as a visit

   The synagogue room and its courtyard.

   Access

   Run by the regional government of Andalusia. Closed on Mondays and on published public holidays. Groups larger than six book ahead. Checked 16 September 2026.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

3. 3

   Casa de Sefarad

   Casa de Sefarad

   Córdoba, Spain

   

   A private museum in a fourteenth century house on the corner of Calle Judíos, Casa de Sefarad keeps the Sephardi thread going past 1492: the Judeo-Spanish language, the domestic life, the women of the Córdoba Judería, and the music that travelled with the exiles to Salonica and Istanbul.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum rooms around the central courtyard.

   Access

   A small independent museum with its own opening hours. Checked 16 September 2026.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

4. 4

   Museum of Jewish History

   Museu d'Història dels Jueus

   Girona, Spain

   

   Girona's Call is one of the best preserved Jewish quarters in Europe, and the museum sits inside what was the last synagogue, closed in 1492. The city was a centre of Kabbalah under Nahmanides. The collection includes medieval gravestones recovered from the hillside burial ground.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum galleries and the courtyard of the former synagogue.

   Access

   Run by the city of Girona. Hours are seasonal. Checked 16 September 2026.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

5. 5

   Ibn Danan Synagogue

   كنيس ابن دنان

   Fez, Morocco

   

   The Ibn Danan synagogue stands in the mellah of Fez, the oldest Jewish quarter in Morocco, established in 1438. Built in the seventeenth century, it is one of the oldest surviving synagogues in North Africa. A restoration finished in 1999 with Morocco's Ministry of Culture and the Judeo-Moroccan heritage foundation.

   What counts as a visit

   The prayer hall, the women's gallery and the mikveh below it.

   Access

   Opened by a keyholder rather than on fixed museum hours. It sits inside the UNESCO listed medina of Fez. Checked 16 September 2026.

   A place of reflection

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

6. 6

   Slat al-Azama Synagogue

   صلاة العزامة

   Marrakesh, Morocco

   

   Slat al-Azama, the Lazama synagogue, sits around a blue courtyard in the Marrakesh mellah and is said to have been founded by families expelled from Spain in 1492. The name means the synagogue of the exiles. It still holds services and the community keeps a small exhibition beside it.

   What counts as a visit

   The courtyard, the prayer room and the community exhibition rooms.

   Access

   Run by the Marrakesh Jewish community. Closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. Modest dress. Checked 16 September 2026.

   A place of reflection

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

7. 7

   El Ghriba Synagogue

   كنيس الغريبة

   Djerba, Tunisia

   

   El Ghriba is the oldest synagogue in Africa and the centre of one of the last Jewish communities in the Arab world. Every year at Lag BaOmer a pilgrimage brings people back to Djerba from France, Israel and across the diaspora. The island was inscribed by UNESCO in 2023, with the synagogue among the named places.

   What counts as a visit

   The synagogue courtyard and prayer hall during published visiting hours.

   Access

   An active synagogue with a permanent security presence after past attacks. Check your government's current travel advice for southern Tunisia, and expect screening and restrictions during the Lag BaOmer pilgrimage. Checked 16 September 2026.

   A place of reflectionTravel advisory

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

8. 8

   Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki

   Εβραϊκό Μουσείο Θεσσαλονίκης

   Thessaloniki, Greece

   

   Thessaloniki was called the Mother of Israel. For four centuries after 1492 it was a majority Jewish city and Ladino was the language of its port. Ninety six per cent of its Jews were deported to Auschwitz in 1943. The museum holds what is left, including stones from a burial ground of half a million graves.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum galleries and the memorial to the Jewish cemetery.

   Access

   Closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays and on some Greek public holidays. Checked 16 September 2026.

   A place of reflection

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

9. 9

   Kahal Shalom Synagogue

   Καάλ Σαλόμ

   Rhodes, Greece

   

   Kahal Shalom was built in 1577 and is the oldest synagogue in Greece. The Jewish quarter of Rhodes, La Juderia, held about two thousand people in 1944. Almost all of them were deported and killed. The synagogue survives with a black and white pebble floor and a museum in the rooms beside it.

   What counts as a visit

   The synagogue and the Rhodes Jewish Museum in the adjoining rooms.

   Access

   Opening is seasonal and narrower in winter. Closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. Checked 16 September 2026.

   A place of reflectionSeasonal

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

10. 10

    Algazi Synagogue

    Algazi Sinagogu

    İzmir, Turkey

    

    İzmir's Kemeraltı district holds a cluster of Sephardi synagogues packed almost wall to wall, a plan found nowhere else. The Algazi synagogue is one of nine being restored together as a single Jewish heritage route. The Ottoman city took in the exiles of 1492 and their descendants stayed for four hundred years.

    What counts as a visit

    The synagogue interior on the İzmir Jewish heritage route, where open.

    Access

    Several of the Kemeraltı synagogues are still in restoration and open by arrangement rather than on fixed hours. Check the project site before travelling. Checked 16 September 2026.

    A place of reflectionPermit required

    Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

11. 11

    Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue

    معبد إلياهو حانابي

    Alexandria, Egypt

    

    Alexandria held one of the great Jewish communities of the ancient and the modern world. Eliyahu Hanavi in its present form dates from 1850 and seats seven hundred. Fewer than a dozen Jews remain in the city. The Egyptian state paid for a three year restoration and reopened the building in January 2020.

    What counts as a visit

    The synagogue interior during arranged visiting hours.

    Access

    Access is controlled and usually arranged in advance with identification. Photography inside may be restricted. Checked 16 September 2026.

    A place of reflectionPermit required

    Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

12. 12

    Ben Ezra Synagogue

    معبد بن عزرا

    Cairo, Egypt

    

    Ben Ezra in Old Cairo is where the Cairo Geniza was found, a storeroom of roughly three hundred thousand discarded documents left untouched for nine centuries. Letters, contracts and shopping lists from it rebuilt the daily history of the medieval Mediterranean. The building itself dates in its present form from the nineteenth century.

    What counts as a visit

    The synagogue interior in the Coptic Cairo compound.

    Access

    Managed by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities inside Coptic Cairo. Photography inside is restricted. Checked 16 September 2026.

    A place of reflection

    Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

13. 13

    Etz Hayyim Synagogue

    Συναγωγή Ετζ Χαγίμ

    Chania, Greece

    

    Etz Hayyim is the only synagogue left on Crete. The island's Jews, the Romaniote and Sephardi community of Chania, were rounded up in 1944 and drowned when their transport ship was sunk. The building was a ruin until a restoration in the 1990s. It reopened as a working house of prayer and a place of reconciliation.

    What counts as a visit

    The synagogue, its courtyard, the mikveh and the tombs of the rabbis.

    Access

    Small, quiet and seasonal in its opening. Closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. Checked 16 September 2026.

    A place of reflectionSeasonal

    Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

14. 14

    National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine

    Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

    

    The Sarajevo Haggadah is kept here. Written in Barcelona around 1350, it left Iberia with the expulsion and reached Sarajevo by the sixteenth century. A Muslim curator hid it from the Nazis and another protected it during the siege of Sarajevo. It is displayed in its own room on set days.

    What counts as a visit

    The museum galleries, including the Haggadah room when it is open.

    Access

    The Haggadah is shown on limited days and times, separate from general museum admission. Check before travelling. Checked 16 September 2026.

    Seasonal

    Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

Respect and access

Preserve the community's own names for things. A mellah is not a ghetto and a Call is not a Judería, even where guidebooks use the words loosely. Several of these buildings sit in living Muslim neighbourhoods. Dress and behave as you would anywhere else there. Photography inside is restricted at Ben Ezra, Alexandria and Kochi, and the restriction is enforced.

Permit required

Entry needs a permit, a booking or a ticket arranged in advance.

Travel advisory

A government advisory currently applies to this area. Read the current advisory before planning anything.

Seasonal

Access follows a season, a calendar or an event rather than being open year round.

A place of reflection

This is a memorial or a site of atrocity. Visitors are asked to be quiet, to follow the custodian's guidance on photography, and to treat it as somewhere people grieve.

Opening times, prices, permits and eligibility change. Nothing on this page is a statement about today. Follow the Check access link on a place before you plan around it.

Sources

• whc.unesco.orghttps://whc.unesco.org/en/list/170
• cultura.gob.eshttps://www.cultura.gob.es/msefardi/home.html · checked September 16, 2026
• juntadeandalucia.eshttps://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/enclaves/enclave-monumental-sinagoga-de-cordoba · checked September 16, 2026
• sefarad-vr.comhttps://sefarad-vr.com/en/sepharads-house/ · checked September 16, 2026
• girona.cathttps://www.girona.cat/call/eng/museu.php · checked September 16, 2026
• wmf.orghttps://www.wmf.org/monuments/rabbi-shlomo-ibn-danan-synagogue · checked September 16, 2026
• jmarrakech.orghttps://www.jmarrakech.org/ · checked September 16, 2026
• whc.unesco.orghttps://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1640/ · checked September 16, 2026
• jmth.grhttps://www.jmth.gr/ · checked September 16, 2026
• rhodesjewishmuseum.orghttps://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/ · checked September 16, 2026
• izmirjh.comhttps://www.izmirjh.com/en/ · checked September 16, 2026
• egymonuments.gov.eghttps://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/news/eliyahu-hanavi-synagogue-in-alexandria-reopened/ · checked September 16, 2026
• egymonuments.gov.eghttps://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/monuments/ben-ezra-synagogue · checked September 16, 2026
• etz-hayyim-hania.orghttps://www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/ · checked September 16, 2026
• zemaljskimuzej.bahttps://www.zemaljskimuzej.ba/en · checked September 16, 2026

TravelDay selected and grouped these places. Naming a custodian, a government agency or UNESCO as a source is not a claim that any of them endorsed this journey.