Madrid to open first Jewish museum after legal battle over building

Madrid will open a Jewish museum in a building that had been illegally occupied by members of the anti-capitalist Occupy network, the city’s mayor said last week.

“This is the only major capital in Western Europe without a museum, yet it has deep Jewish ties to countless Jews who continue to nurture the Sephardic culture since the expulsion of 1492 and their affection to Spain,” Mayor Jose Luis Martínez-Almeida said while announcing the decision.

The museum is set to open within two years in a building nicknamed “The Ungovernable.” In November 2019, the mayor’s municipality won a legal battle to evict the squatters from the building, who had been living there since 2017.The museum will be leased for free for 50 years and Fundacion Hispano-Judia, a Madrid non-profit that promotes Jewish heritage, will be responsible for providing funding for the museum.

The publication Libertad Digital reported that a Jewish museum may help advance Madrid’s bid for UNESCO recognition of the central Cortes area, which is where the museum will be located.

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