Madrid: Passover
Are you looking for a Seder in Madrid? (or Shabbat?) Here’s what we found and our recommendations. Registration in advance is required, as it is for Shabbat services.
CJM: Communidad Judia de Madrid (Orthodox/ Sepharad) contact: info@cjmadrid.org or secretaria@cjmadrid.org GOOD FOOD and friendly folks who spoke English, Italian, French, and of course Spanish. The Rebbetzin is fluent in English and a native of Spain. The Rabbi is also from Spain. The service and REALLY GREAT FOOD were Sepharad. They have a regular caterer, so I’d jump on the opportunity to eat with them for a regular Shabbat as well if you are looking for a Sephardic Jewish experience. They have an online form to join for Shabbat, which I tried to use because no Passover information was posted when I started looking. I emailed them and said the form was not working and they were good communicators by email. They had 3 options for meals/Seders during Passover: 1st and 2nd nights and 2nd day lunch.
Sorry, no pictures of the food because it was Shabbat as well as Pesach. This congregation predates the 1492 expulsion of the Jews and reformed in the mid 1900’s. They have about 4K members, a high school with more than 350 kids, and several satellite shuls that tend to serve different age groups.
CJRM: Comunidad Judia Reformista de Madrid (Reform) contact: info@cjrm.es whatsapp: 659360782 We contacted them by email and they had a form to fill out a few weeks before the Seder. We joined this group for the first night. Seder was held at a local hotel and was a mix of expat Americans and locals who are members of the congregation. The seder was conducted in English, Spanish, and Hebrew and people were separated at English or Spanish speaking tables with haggadot in the appropriate language. There were about 10 kids in attendance, ranging from 3 months to about 10 and the facilitators did a good job of giving kids special jobs and creative activities.
Congregation Bet-El (Conservative) contact: administracion@bet-el.org We did not attend this seder but the administrator was great at communicating with us and the community was organized with an online form to fill out in advance.