Jewish Heritage UK - Gibraltar Jewish Heritage

In the spring of 2005 the Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage carried out fieldwork in Gibraltar

2004 marked the 300th anniversary of the capture of Gibraltar by the British in 1704. Under British rule the Jewish community was permitted to resettle in this strategically vital southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula for the first time in 200 years. Catholic Spain had expelled the Jews from its shores in 1492. In the mid-18th century, about a third of the population of Gibraltar was Jewish, adding to the richly cosmopolitan mix of the free port. Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus, from England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, North Africa and India, live side by side in Gibraltar.

Today, the Gibraltar Jewish community, Sephardim mostly from Morocco, is some 600 strong and its four historic synagogues are all still in use, a rare legacy in Europe, untouched by the ravages of the Second World War.

For the first time, Gibraltar’s little-known Jewish built heritage has been systematically documented and researched and a full photographic record made by the Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage, using well-tested methods already employed on mainland Britain, in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and the Channel Islands. A full measured architectural survey has been made of the oldest of Gibraltar’s synagogues, Sha’ar HaShamayim.

Sha’ar HaShamayim, or the Gibraltar Great Synagogue, was founded in 1724 by Isaac Nieto (or Netto) of London. Rebuilt several times, the present building largely dates from 1812 and shares features in common with the parent Spanish & Portuguese synagogues of Amsterdam (1675) and London (Bevis Marks) (1701). The Survey also covered Nefusot Yehudah (dating from ca. 1797-1800), the so-called “Flemish Synagogue” on account of its distinctive gable, as well as the smaller Abudarham and Etz Hayim Synagogues. Other sites, such as the Georgian Jewish burial ground at “Jew’s Gate” on the Rock and its successor at the North Front Cemetery, were also included.

Publication Jewish Heritage in Gibraltar: An Architectural Guide (Published by Spire Books, 2007). See New Publications page.