Located in the symbolic place of the medieval Jewish quarter of Lecce, exactly where the fifteenth-century synagogue once stood, the Museum is characterized as a place of meeting, culture and dialogue.
It is proposed as a point of reference for discovering the traditions and history of the Jewish community that lived in Lecce in the late Middle Ages.
During the visit, one can observe the basins probably used for ritual ablutions (mikwa’ot), the space of a door jamb in which a mezuzah was housed and the remains of the church building, the perimeter of which is substantially the same as the pre-existing synagogue.
The visitor is invited to follow the traces of the Jewish presence in Lecce from the Middle Ages to the present day, the legacy of Apulian Judaism in other centers of the diaspora and the relationships between communities of different faiths in the history of the territory. Itineraries are also suggested specifically for those interested in rediscovering the traces of the Jewish presence in Puglia.
From the will of the founding members of the Jewish Museum of Lecce to give more space to art, MAiDE was born in 2022, a gallery dedicated to contemporary art that hosts the works of international artists of Jewish culture and beyond, and is configured as a place for painting workshops and events.
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