Despite periods of persecution, for the most part the Jews of Gibraltar have prospered and been one of the largest religious minorities in the city, where they have made contributions to the culture, defence, and the government.

[3] In 1474, twelve years after the Christian takeover, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, sold Gibraltar to a group of Jewish conversos from Cordova and Seville led by Pedro de Herrera in exchange for maintaining the garrison of the town for two years, after which time the 4,350 Jews were expelled by the Duke.

[4] Jews were expelled from Spain under the Alhambra decree of 1492 and from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497, effectively ending all Jewish activity there, except in the cases of conversos or possible Crypto-Jews.

However, in order to avoid scurvy, fresh provisions had to be procured for soldiers after a few months of salted or cured food.

For soldiers stationed in Gibraltar, Morocco was the most convenient location to obtain fresh beef, although pork was not available from the Muslim country.

[7] After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Gibraltar came under the rule of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which made the area a British dependency.

Spain insisted on language in the Treaty that excluded Jews and Moors from Gibraltar:[8] Her Britannic Majesty, at the request of the Catholic King, does consent and agree that no leave shall be given, under any pretext whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar.However, the British ignored this provision.

In 1716, supplies began to arrive over the border with Spain, but the Spanish ambassador complained that there were substantial numbers of Jews living in Gibraltar, in violation of the terms of the treaty.

[5] In 1721, a reciprocal treaty was negotiated with the Sultan of Morocco, Ismail Ibn Sharif, allowing both Jews and Muslims to settle in Gibraltar, and Englishmen to reside in Barbary (Morocco):[8][10] The subjects of the Emperor of Fez and Morocco, whether Moors or Jews, residing in the dominion of the King of Great Britain, shall entirely enjoy the same privileges that are granted to the English residing in Barbary.In 1726, Spain claimed that Britain had violated the terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, and used that as a pretext for unsuccessfully attacking Gibraltar.

[13] Tito Benady, a historian on Gibraltar Jewry, noted that when some 200 Jews of the 2000 evacuees from Gibraltar were evacuated as non combatants to Funchal, Madeira, at the start of World War II, they found a Jewish cemetery (Jewish Cemetery of Funchal) that belonged to the Abudarham family.

[15] In 2008, a monument was made in Gibraltar and shipped to Madeira, where it has been erected next to a small chapel at Santa Caterina park, Funchal.

In 2004, at a celebration of the 300 years since the British takeover, the congregants at the Great Synagogue (Shaar Hashamayim) performed the anthem "God Save the Queen" in Hebrew, the first time that has occurred officially.

Some of the population ended up in camps in Jamaica, where the diet was sometimes less than optimal and there were misunderstandings with Jews who were sent there as refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe.

[8] In addition, in 1967, Francisco Franco closed the border with Spain after a referendum in which Gibraltar's residents expressed their desire to remain British.

[22][23] In December 2004, Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, spoke at a service in the Great Synagogue which commemorated the 300th anniversary of the victory of the Anglo-Dutch fleet at Gibraltar.

The occasion, which also served as a celebration of Gibraltar as a haven for Jews, featured the anthem God Save the Queen sung in Hebrew.

By 1830 the civilian population was evaluated to 1,900, of which 1,300 were "native" Jews and 600 recent Jewish immigrants,[9]: 372  and by 1878 the community counted 1,533 members.