This is one of the two synagogues that are still standing in the city of Toledo. Unlike the public Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca, this religious temple was born with the aim of serving as a private oratory for Samuel ha-Levi, treasurer of King Pedro I of Castile, who had received the approval of this monarch to build a synagogue at a historical moment when it was not allowed to do so. The reason why the monarch granted his approval was because Samuel had previously helped the king in his confrontation with his brother Enrique de Trastámara. The works of the oratory were carried out in 1355 leaving a construction based on brick walls, and rich interior decorations based on plasterwork, geometric and vegetable motifs and epigraphs, following the religious precepts where the real importance lies in the bowels of the architecture. These ornamentations make the building a unique place, a reflection of the atmosphere of coexistence in fourteenth-century Toledo. Today the old prayer room, where the male Jews celebrated their worship three times a day, part of the school where the rabbis taught the Torah and the elevated gallery for women, all of which are integrated into the premises of the Sephardic Museum, are preserved.

The Sephardic Museum

In 1492, after the edict of expulsion of the Sephardim proclaimed by the Catholic Monarchs, the temple was handed over to the Order of the Knights of Calatrava. Subsequently, the oratory came under the patronage of San Benito, although all the people of Toledo would know it as the Hermitage of the Transit due to the canvas that was housed inside and that represented "the Transit of the Virgin", a work by Juan Correa de Vivar that is now preserved in the Prado Museum. The old synagogue was declared a National Monument in 1877 and in 1964, the creation of the Sephardic Museum was approved as a place of memory of this community in our country. Since the seventies, the institution has been concerned with expanding its collection, obtaining loans from other museums to enhance its content and, above all, integrating the building into the museographic discourse. The museum is currently divided into five rooms that collect the history of the Jewish community from its earliest times to its expulsion, including its traditions, calendar and religious festivities and liturgical objects.