History of the Jews in Spain
[15] Additionally, a signet ring from Cadiz, dating to the 8th–7th century BCE, features an inscription generally considered Phoenician, though some scholars interpret it as "paleo-Hebraic," possibly indicating a Jewish presence in biblical times.
"[24] From a slightly later period, Midrash Rabbah (Leviticus Rabba § 29.2), and Pesikta de-Rav Kahana (Rosh Hashanna), both, make mention of the Jewish diaspora in Spain (Hispania) and their eventual return.
[36] Based on a later teaching in the compendium of Jewish oral laws compiled by Judah ha-Nasi in 189 CE, known as the Mishnah, Aspamia is associated with a very faraway place, generally thought of as Hispania, or Spain.
[41] According to Rabbi David Kimchi (1160–1235), in his commentary on Obadiah 1:20, Ṣarfat and Sepharad refer to the Jews exiled during the war with Titus and who went as far as the countries Alemania (Germany), Escalona,[42] France and Spain.
Apparently, it was written upon a large stone in the city's street which some very ancient sovereign inscribed and testified that the Jews of Ṭulayṭulah (Toledo) did not depart from there during the building of the Second Temple, and were not involved in putting to death [the man whom they called] Christ.
Rabbi and scholar Abraham ibn Daud wrote in 1161: "A tradition exists with the [Jewish] community of Granada that they are from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, of the descendants of Judah and Benjamin, rather than from the villages, the towns in the outlying districts [of Israel].
The council was aware that prior efforts had been frustrated by lack of compliance among authorities on the local level; therefore, anyone, including nobles and clergy, found to have aided Jews in their practice of Judaism was to be punished by seizure of one quarter of their property and excommunication.
The degree of complicity that the Jews had in the Islamic invasion in 711 is uncertain, but since they were openly treated as enemies in the country in which they had resided for generations, it would be no surprise for them to have appealed to the Moors to the south, who were quite tolerant in comparison to the Visigoths, for aid.
[78] Hasdai benefited world Jewry by creating a favourable environment for scholarly pursuits within Iberia but also by using his influence to intervene on behalf of foreign Jews, as is reflected in his letter to the Byzantine Princess Helena.
In translating the great works of Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek into Latin, Iberian Jews were instrumental in bringing the fields of science and philosophy, which formed much of the basis of Renaissance learning, into the rest of Europe.
The services of Jewish scientists, doctors, traders, poets and scholars were generally valued by the Christian as well as Muslim rulers of regional centres, especially as recently-conquered towns were put back into order.
In addition to his roles as policy director and military leader (as one of only two Jews to command Muslim armies, the other being his son Joseph), Samuel ibn Nagrela was an accomplished poet, and his introduction to the Talmud is standard today.
The Jews' knowledge of the language and the culture of the enemy, their skills as diplomats and professionals and their desire for relief from intolerable conditions rendered their services of great value to the Christians during the Reconquista, the very same reasons that they had proved useful to the Arabs in the early stages of the Muslim invasion.
Soon, however a civil war erupted, as Henry II of Castile and his brother, at the head of a mob, invaded on 7 May 1355 that part of the Judería of Toledo called the Alcaná; they plundered the warehouses and murdered about 1200 Jews, without distinction of age or sex.
The king granted the two last-named demands, as well as a request made by the Cortes of Burgos in 1379 that Jews should neither carry arms nor sell weapons; but he did not prevent them from holding religious disputations, nor did he deny them the exercise of criminal jurisprudence.
"The execution of Joseph Pichon and the inflammatory speeches and sermons delivered in Seville by Archdeacon Ferrand Martínez, the pious Queen Leonora's confessor, soon raised the hatred of the populace to the highest pitch.
The feeble King John I, in spite of the endeavors of his physician Moses ibn Ẓarẓal to prolong his life, died at Alcalá de Henares on 9 October 1390, and was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son.
The council-regent appointed by the king in his testament, consisting of prelates, grandees, and six citizens from Burgos, Toledo, León, Seville, Córdoba, and Murcia, was powerless; every vestige of respect for law and justice had disappeared.
On Aug. 2 the wave of murder visited Palma, in Majorca; 300 Jews were killed, and 800 found refuge in the fort, from which, with the permission of the governor of the island, and under cover of night, they sailed to North Africa; many submitted to baptism.
1586),[104] as also in Abraham Zacuto's Sefer Yuḥasin,[105] in Solomon ibn Verga's Shevaṭ Yehudah,[106] as well as in a Letter written to the Jews of Avignon by Don Hasdai Crescas in the winter of 1391 concerning the events in Spain in the year 1391.
[114] At the Catholic preacher Ferrer's request a law consisting of twenty-four clauses, which had been drawn up by Paul of Burgos, né Solomon haLevi, was issued in January 1412 in the name of the child-king John II of Castile.
By this bull Jews and neophytes were forbidden to study the Talmud, to read anti-Catholic writing, in particular the work "Macellum" ("Mar Jesu"), to pronounce the names of Jesus, Maria, or the saints, to manufacture communion-cups or other church vessels or accept such as pledges, or to build new synagogues or ornament old ones.
Jews and Non-Catholic Christians reportedly had substantially better numerical skills than the Catholic majority, which might be due to the Jewish religious doctrine, which focused strongly on education, for example because Torah-Reading was compulsory.
It is said also that Ferdinand hesitated, but was prevented from accepting the offer by Tomás de Torquemada, the grand inquisitor, who dashed into the royal presence and, throwing a crucifix down before the king and queen, asked whether, like Judas, they would betray their Lord for money.
This in addition to the indeterminate number who managed to return has led recent academic investigations such as those of Joseph Pérez and Julio Valdeón to offer figures of somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 practicing Jews expelled from Spanish territory.
During this period hundreds of conversos escaped to nearby countries such as England, France and the Netherlands, or converted back to Judaism, thus becoming part of the communities of Western Sephardim or Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
[128] Around that same time, a contingent of Spanish doctors travelling in Occupied Poland were fully informed of the Nazi extermination plans by Governor-General Hans Frank, who was under the impression that they would share his views about the matter; when they came home, they passed the story to Admiral Luís Carrero Blanco, who told Franco.
[citation needed] After the war, Franco's regime was quite hospitable to those who had been responsible for the deportation of the Jews, notably Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissioner for Jewish Affairs (May 1942 – February 1944) in Vichy France, and to many other former Nazis, such as Otto Skorzeny and Léon Degrelle, and other former Fascists.
[138] José María Finat y Escrivá de Romaní, Franco's chief of security, issued an official order dated 13 May 1941 to all provincial governors requesting a list of all Jews, both local and foreign, present in their districts.
[146][147] Some famous Spaniards of Jewish descent are the businesswomen Alicia and Esther Koplowitz, the politician Enrique Múgica Herzog, and Isak Andic, founder of the clothing design and manufacturing company Mango, though only the latter is of Sephardic origin.
