Twinned Towns:  Castrillo Mota de Judíos (Spain) and  Kfar Vradim (Israel)

ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question:  On what basis was the town of Kfar Vradim founded?

Castrillo Mota de Judíos is a small village of about 50 inhabitants in the Spanish province of Burgos, about 265 kilometers or 165 miles north of Madrid. The name means “hill of the Jews”, and the town was settled in the 11^th century by the Jewish population of the nearby town of Castrojeriz, after a pogrom there forced them to leave.  As you know, the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and in the 17^th century the name of the town was changed to Castrillo Matajudíos–which means “Jew killer”.  In 2015, at the initiative of the current Mayor, Lorenzo Rodríguez, the town held a referendum and unanimously decided to restore its original name.  The site of the original town is also undergoing archeological excavations and in November a new Sephardi Memorial Center was opened, for the promotion and diffusion of the Spanish Jewish legacy.

Kfar Vradim, which means “Village of Roses”, is a town in Northern Israel that was established very recently, in 1984. 

In 2016 an agreement was signed designating the two villages as twin towns to promote cultural, touristic and commercial ties.

This week we’re speaking with Virginia Rodríguez, daughter of the Mayor of Castrillo Mota de Judíos, and Sivan Yechieli, who was Mayor of Kfar Vradim at the time of the twinning, about their respective towns and the relationship between them.