CHAPTER 17: OVENS AND UNLEAVENED BREAD - PASSOVER

CHAPTER 17: OVENS AND UNLEAVENED BREAD - PASSOVER Series: Medieval Jewish Quarter of Zaragoza Narrator: Ibn Gabirol Direction and Production: Javier Bona López SUMMARY Step into the warm heart of the medieval Jewish quarter of Zaragoza: the community ovens where fire, flour, and water transformed into daily sustenance and, once a year, into the sacred maçot, the unleavened bread of Passover. Discover the topography of fire through the Callizo del Forno, the Callizo de Forno del Hospital, and the Calle del Forno del Salvage. Learn about the "King's Oven" system, that royal monopoly that controlled the right to bake bread. Accompany the women of the aljama in their daily ritual of kneading and baking, turning the oven into a space of socialization and transmission of traditions. Experience the purifying fever that takes over the Jewish quarter with the arrival of Passover: the search for chametz, the koshering of the ovens, and the race against time to make maçot in just 18 minutes. Sit at the Seder table and savor the memory: the bitter maror, the sweet charoset, the four cups of wine, and the hope of Elijah's cup. And discover the bitter epilogue: how after 1492, the bread of freedom became the bread of fear, baked in secret by the conversos under the relentless gaze of the Inquisition. A chapter full of smells of burning wood and freshly baked bread, of sounds of dough being kneaded and crackling fire, of golden colors and flavors that are the living memory of a people. Direction and Production: Javier Bona López If you have enjoyed this journey to the heart of our aljama, I invite you to share it. You can listen to other chapters and series about the medieval Jewish quarters of Aragon on the main podcasting platforms, such as those about Calatayud, Tarazona, and Híjar. Zakhor. Remember. Shalom. CREDITS AND SOURCES Narrator: Ibn Gabirol Direction and Production: Javier Bona López Documentación and Advice: Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader (San Jorge University of Zaragoza) Main Bibliography: 10 Blasco Martínez, Asunción. La Judería de Zaragoza en el siglo XIV. Institución Fernando el Católico (IFC), 1988. 11 Blasco Martínez, Asunción & Lozano Gracia, Susana. La Judería de Zaragoza - Paso a Paso. Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 2023. 12 Canellas López, Ángel. La Judería Zaragozana. Cuadernos de Zaragoza, no. 2, 1974. 13 Motis Dolader, Miguel Ángel. La judería de Zaragoza: Centro de la vida económica y social. Rolde de Estudios Aragoneses. 14 Motis-Dolader, Miguel Ángel; Ruiz-Varona, Ana; Pérez-López, Lourdes. "Urban Morphology and Functional Hierarchy of the Jewish Quarter of Zaragoza (Spain) at the End of the Fifteenth Century". Journal of Urban History, 2023. 15 Pérez, Joseph. Los judíos en España. Marcial Pons Historia, 2005. 16 Sanagustín Palomar, Jesús Óscar. Comunidades, oficios y élites judías aragonesas a comienzos de la Baja Edad Media: una época de coexistencia (1270-1342). Master's Thesis in Research and Advanced Studies in History. University of Zaragoza, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, 2022. Supervisor: Germán Navarro Espinach. 17 Sefarad Aragón. La desaparecida judería de Zaragoza. Self-published, 2010. Archives and other sources: • Historical Archive of Protocols of Zaragoza (AHPZ). Notarial protocols from the 14th and 15th centuries. • Municipal Archive of Zaragoza (AMZ). Medieval municipal ordinances and historical plans. • Document "Architecture of sacredness and sustenance: The ovens of the medieval Jewish quarter of Zaragoza and the making of unleavened bread in the context of Passover" (provided by the user). • Sarajevo Haggadah. 14th-century illuminated manuscript, produced in the Crown of Aragon. © Series: Medieval Jewish Quarter of Zaragoza Production: Javier Bona López