Part 4 – Sephardic Jews of Spain
The Golden Age had ended and the Dark Ages came to Spain
In 1250 the first blood libel was recorded. Pogroms (violent and spontaneous riots) began emerging and increasing all over Spain, mobs murdered Jews destroying and looting their homes, shops and religious centres, reaching its peak in 1391 where thousands were killed marking the beginning of the Sephardic Diaspora.
Many Jews were baptised into Christendom yet practised Judaism secretly, nicknamed “marranos” meaning ‘swine’ (their prohibition against eating pork); thousands were discovered and burned at the stake, others did convert and married into Spanish aristocracy (some of which would later partly finance the expedition that would take Cristobal Colon to discover America).
In 1469 Fernando II of Aragon and Isabel of Castilla (the Catholic Monarchs) were married, unifying two Spanish dynasties and marking the beginning of a unified Catholic Spain. In 1478 they introduced the Inquisition for the purifying of a Catholic Spain which implied that in order to have true political and social unity you needed a religious unity, this was backed by the Pope in Rome who appointed Tomas de Torquemada a zealous enemy of the Jews to be the one to carry out the expulsion of the Sephardim from Spain, he was also the one to convince the King (who had been opposed to their expulsion due to business interests and because it is believed that his mother may have been a Jewish descendant converted to Catholicism). The Crown of Aragon protected many Hebrew families during the Spanish reconquest. During the inquisition 20000 Jews had to abandon their homes (a)
In 1492 the Moors were driven out of Granada their stronghold on the peninsula, the monarchs then decreed the expulsion of the Sephardim which coincided with the Hebrew * ‘Tisha B’Av’. By the end of 1492 more than 100000 Jews had fled Spain all in different directions (b);
1.Some crossed over to Morocco continuing on to other North African countries and Syria slowly returning to Israel their homeland.
2. A small fraction moved to Italy, Switzerland and Denmark.
3. Those who emigrated to Portugal were forced to exile once again in 1497 (some of which then re-established their Jewish identity).
4. A great majority fled to the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey, Greece and the Balkans) who were warmly welcomed by the Sultan who is now famous for his phrase “ those that send them lose, I win!”.
5. Others migrated to the New World
By the XIV century Europe was hit by drought, dying crops and the Black Plague which killed almost half of the population of Spain (this was associated to events surrounding the Jews).