MADRID (EJP)---Some 100 rabbis from around Europe gather Monday in Madrid for a three-day conference of the Sephardic Jewish communities to mark the revival of Jewish life in Spain since their expulsion from the country in 1492.

Israel’s chief rabbi Yona Metzger and Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, eldest son of Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi Ovadia Yossef, will also attend the event, organized by the Rabbinical Center of Europe. 

The first days of the seminar will be held in the Spanish capital where the rabbis will discuss the Spanish Jewish heritage. They will be hosted by the local Jewish community lead by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Dahan.

Sephardi Jews are Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula, including the descendants of those subject to expulsion from Spain in 1492.

The highlight of the gathering will take place on October 24 when a special prayer ceremony will be held in memory of the inquisition martyrs at the Spanish Jewish museum in Toledo.

The museum, once recognized as the synagogue of Judah ben Samuel Halevy, considered as one of the greatest Hebrew poet of the middle ages, was built in the 14th century and functioned as a center for the growing Jewish community in Toledo at the time.

After the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1942, the synagogue became a church and in the 18th century, it was a hermitage dedicated to the Transito de Nuestra Senora.

During the war against Napoleon, it became a military barracks.

In 1977 the synagogue was declared a national monument and has been used as a Sephardic museum ever since. Its walls still hold Hebrew inscriptions of psalms.

Some 15,000 Jews live in Spain.