The Diplomat
Centro Sefarad-Israel and the Madrid City Council have signed an agreement to jointly promote a greater knowledge of Jewish culture in Madrid society.
The agreement, signed on April 26 and published last Friday in the Official State Gazette (BOE), provides for the creation, within the Iván de Vargas Municipal Public Library, of its own easily identifiable section called the Centro Sefarad-Israel / Isaac Revah Library.
To this end, the Centro Sefarad-Israel will deposit 400 books on Jewish themes, which will be integrated into the library’s collection and into the home loan service, including the inter-center loan service, so that all users of the Network can borrow them.
In addition, and as part of the same agreement, the City Council will annually propose to the Centro Sefarad-Israel the organization of joint activities that are of mutual interest for the fulfillment of their goals, in particular those related to the holding of seminars and conferences that contribute to promoting the study of the legacy of Sephardic culture as an integral and living part of Madrid and Spanish culture, fostering greater knowledge of Jewish culture and promoting the development of ties of friendship and cooperation between Madrid and Spanish society and Israeli society. Centro Sefarad-Israel may also propose to the City Council that joint activities be carried out under the same terms indicated above.
Likewise, the City Council undertakes to continue promoting the Holocaust Readings program within the Public Library Network and other similar programs that contribute to keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust and serve as a reflection on anti-Semitism.
The duration of the agreement, which entered into force after its publication in the BOE, will be four years, extendable for a maximum period of up to four additional years. This Agreement does not entail any economic obligation whatsoever for the Madrid City Council or for Centro Sefarad-Israel. Notwithstanding the above, the estimated cost of this library amounts to 7,128 euros, which is the result of multiplying the 400 volumes that are delivered on deposit by the average price of books in Spain (17.82), according to the latest edition of the Panorámica de la edición española de libros (Overview of Spanish book publishing) published by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
