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SephardicJews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad, can also refer to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, who were also heavily influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiled families also later sought refuge in those Jewish communities, resulting in ethnic and cultural integration with those communities over the span of many centuries.
Marranos is one of the terms used in relation to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted or were forced by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns to convert to Christianity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy or were suspected of it, referred to as Crypto-Jews. "Crypto-Jew" is the term increasingly preferred in scholarly works, instead of Marrano.
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews".
Maghrebi Jews or North African Jews are ethnic Jews who had traditionally lived in the Maghreb region of North Africa under Arab rule during the Middle Ages. Established Jewish communities had existed in North Africa long before the arrival of Sephardi Jews, expelled from Portugal and Spain. Due to proximity, the term 'Maghrebi Jews' sometimes refers to Egyptian Jews as well, even though there are important cultural differences between the history of Egyptian and Maghrebi Jews. These Jews originating from North Africa constitute the second largest Jewish diaspora group.
New Christian was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century onwards primarily to describe the descendants of the Sephardic Jews and Moors baptised into the Catholic Church following the Alhambra Decree. The Alhambra Decree of 1492, also known as the Edict of Expulsion, was an anti-Jewish law made by the Catholic Monarchs upon the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. It required Jews to convert to Catholic Christianity or be expelled from Spain. Most of the history of the "New Christians" refers to the Jewish converts, who were generally known as Conversos while the Muslim converts were known as Moriscos.
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.:17
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.
The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.
Abulafia or Abolafia is a Sephardi Jewish surname whose etymological origin is in the Arabic language. The family name, like many other Hispanic-origin Sephardic Jewish surnames, originated in Spain among Spanish Jews (Sephardim), during the time when it was ruled as Al-Andalus by Arabic-speaking Moors.
The Alba Bible is a 1430 illuminated manuscript containing a translation of the Old Testament made directly from Hebrew into mediaeval Castilian. The translation was carried out under the direction of Moses Arragel, rabbi of the Jewish community of Maqueda in the Spanish province of Toledo, at the behest of Grand Master Luis González de Guzmán of the Order of Calatrava.
The Portuguese Synagogue, also known as the Esnoga, or Snoge, is a late 17th-century Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam, completed in 1675. Esnoga is the word for synagogue in Judaeo-Spanish, the traditional Judaeo-Spanish language of Sephardi Jews.
The Synagogue of El Tránsito, also known as the Synagogue of Samuel ha-Levi or Halevi, is a historic synagogue, church, and Sephardic museum in Toledo, Spain. Designed by master mason Don Meir (Mayr) Abdeil, it was built as an annex of the palace of Samuel ha-Levi Abulafia, treasurer to King Peter of Castile, in 1357.
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The Beth Yaacov Synagogue is a synagogue in Madrid, Spain. When it opened its doors in 1968, it was the first new synagogue building built in Spain since the Catholic Monarchs of Spain expelled the country's Jews in 1492.
Sephardic Bnei Anusim is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jews who were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain and Portugal. The vast majority of conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, and their descendants, who number in the millions, live in both of these countries. The small minority of conversos who did emigrate normally chose to emigrate to destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but also to more tolerant cities in Europe, where many of them immediately reverted to Judaism. In theory, very few of them would have traveled to Latin America with colonial expeditions, as only those Spaniards who could certify that they had no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were supposed to be allowed to travel to the New World. Recent genetic studies suggest that the Sephardic ancestry present in Latin American populations arrived at the same time as the initial colonization, which suggests that significant numbers of recent converts were able to travel to the new world and contribute to the gene pool of modern Latin American populations despite an official prohibition on them doing so. In addition, later arriving Spanish immigrants would have themselves contributed additional converso ancestry in some parts of Latin America.
Eastern Sephardim are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews mostly descended from Jewish families which were exiled from Iberia in the 15th century, following the Alhambra Decree of 1492 in Spain and a similar decree in Portugal five years later. This branch of descendants of Iberian Jews settled across the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Sephardic Museum is a national museum in Toledo, Spain, that exhibits a collection of the Jewish cultural heritage in Spain, as well as of the Sephardim, the descendants of the Jews who lived on the Iberian peninsula until 1492. It occupies the former convent of the Knights of Calatrava, annexed to the Synagogue of El Tránsito.
The Expulsion of Jews from Spain was the expulsion of practicing Jews following the Alhambra Decree in 1492, which was enacted to eliminate their influence on Spain's large converso population and to ensure its members did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted to Catholicism as a result of the Massacre of 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. Many of those who remained decided to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and the prior persecution, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism, and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. An unknown number returned to Spain in the following years. The expulsion led to mass migration of Jews from Spain to Italy, Greece, Turkey and the Mediterranean Basin. One result of the migration was new Jewish surnames appearing in Italy and Greece. The surnames Faraggi, Farag and Farachi, for example, originated from the Spanish city of Fraga.
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain is the umbrella organization representing the interests of most Jews in Spain. Domestically, the FCJE is the official voice of the Spanish Jewish community to the Spanish government. Internationally, the FCJE is the Spanish representative to the European Jewish Congress and World Jewish Congress. In 2021, the FCJE estimated there were between 40,000 and 45,000 Jews in Spain, 98.5% of which are estimated to be part of communities represented by the FCJE.
Rabbi Yehuda Benasouli was a Moroccan-born Orthodox Jewish rabbi. Benasouli served as the Chief Rabbi of Madrid from 1978 until 1997.
References
- ↑ "Samuel Toledano, 66, Advocate for Jews of Spain". The New York Times. 1996-07-25. Retrieved 2020-02-21.
- ↑ Toledano, Samuel (Autumn 1990). "Toledo: Capital of Sepharad". Encounters: 37–41. Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2020-02-25.
- ↑ Rein, Raanan (2006). "Diplomacy, Propaganda, and Humanitarian Gestures: Francoist Spain and Egyptian Jews, 1956-1968" (PDF). IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal. 6 (23): 21–33. doi:10.18441/ibam.6.2006.23 . Retrieved 2020-02-24.
- ↑ Sachar, Howard Morley (1995). Farewell España: the world of the Sephardim remembered. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 374–375. ISBN 0-679-40960-2.
- ↑ Green, David B. (2015-12-16). "This Day in Jewish History 1968: Spain Revokes the Expulsion of the Jews". Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
- ↑ Tigay, Alan M. (1994-02-01). The Jewish Traveler: Hadassah magazine's guide to the world's Jewish communities and sights. New Jersey: Jason Aronson. p. 283. ISBN 978-1-56821-078-0.
- ↑ "Judíos y protestantes tendrán acuerdos con el Estado similares a los católicos" [Jews and Protestants will have agreements with the State similar to Catholics]. ABC (in Spanish). Madrid. 1987-05-19. Retrieved 2020-02-21.
- ↑ "Spain Extends Guarantees to Jews and Protestants". The New York Times. 1990-02-25. Retrieved 2020-02-21.
- ↑ Illán, M. G. (1992-05-04). "Toledo entrega las llaves de la ciudad a los descendientes sefarditas de la familia Toledano" [Toledo gives the keys to the city to Sephardic descendants of the Toledano family]. ABC (in Spanish). Madrid. Retrieved 2020-02-21.
