Barcelona, Spain - Interest Grows In Restoring Ancient Jewish Areas

Barcelona, Spain - Spain's Catalonia region suffered some of the most virulent anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages. Most Jews were driven out nearly a century before the entire country expelled the others in 1492.

In the centuries that followed, Catalan Jews were a forgotten people. But now, interest is growing in the region's Jewish past, sparking a revival movement that is drawing Jews back.

Barcelona's oldest synagogue, dating from the ninth century, has been restored, and in January it received a gift of a medieval Torah. The Torah, valued at $30,000, was donated by Lorenzo Rozencwaig, a Jewish attorney from New York.

With the 500-year-old scroll installed in its Ark of the Covenant, the synagogue is now consecrated and can begin to function as a house of worship -- though no congregation regularly meets there now.