Sephardic or Sephardi Jews, also Sepharadim or Hispanic 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 Mizrahi Jews of Western Asia and North Africa, who were also influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiles also later sought refuge in Mizrahi Jewish communities, resulting in integration with those communities.
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, yet continued to practice Judaism in secrecy.
Sephardic music is an umbrella term used to refer to the music of the Sephardic Jewish community. Sephardic Jews have a diverse repertoire the origins of which center primarily around the Mediterranean basin. In the secular tradition, material is usually sung in dialects of Judeo-Spanish, though other languages including Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and other local languages of the Sephardic diaspora are widely used. Sephardim maintain geographically unique liturgical and para-liturgical traditions.
The Abravanel family, also spelled as Abarbanel, Abrabanel, Avravanel, Barbernell, or Barbanel – literally meaning Ab ("father") rabban ("priest") el – is one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish families. It first achieved prominence on the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages. Its members claim to trace their origin to the biblical King David. Members of this family lived in Seville, Córdoba, Castile-Leon, and Calatayud. Seville is where its most prominent representative, Don Judah Abravanel, once dwelt.
The history of the Jews in Italy spans more than two thousand years to the present. The Jewish presence in Italy dates to the pre-Christian Roman period and has continued, despite periods of extreme persecution and expulsions, until the present. As of 2019, the estimated core Jewish population in Italy numbers around 45,000.
The history of the Jews in Greece can be traced back to at least the fourth century BCE. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews." The term "Greek Jew" is predominantly used for any Jew that lives in or originates from the modern region of Greece.
João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco, better known as Amato Lusitano and Amatus Lusitanus (1511–1568), was a notable Portuguese Jewish physician of the 16th century. He is sometimes is said to have discovered the valves in the vena azygos.
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 immediate generations following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497.
The Spanish Benveniste family is an old, noble, wealthy, and scholarly Jewish family of Narbonne, France and northern Spain established in the 11th century. The family was present in the 11th to the 15th centuries in Hachmei Provence, France, Barcelona, Aragon and Castile.
Gracia Mendes Nasi was a Portuguese philanthropist and one of the wealthiest Jewish women of Renaissance Europe. She married Francisco Mendes/Benveniste. She was the maternal aunt and business partner of João Micas, who became a prominent figure in the politics of the Ottoman Empire. She also developed an escape network that saved hundreds of Conversos from the Inquisition. Her name – Graça in Portuguese – Gracia is Spanish for the Hebrew Hannah, which means Grace; she was also known by her Christianized name Beatriz (Beatrice) de Luna Miques.
The history of the Jews in Portugal reaches back over two thousand years and is directly related to Sephardi history, a Jewish ethnic division that represents communities that originated in the Iberian Peninsula.
The Ferrara Bible was a 1553 publication of the Ladino version of the Tanakh used by Sephardi Jews. It was paid for and made by Yom-Tob ben Levi Athias and Abraham ben Salomon Usque, and was dedicated to Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. Ercole's wife Renée of France was a Protestant, daughter of Louis XII of France.
Abraham ben Salomon Usque was a 16th-century publisher. Usque was born in Portugal to a Jewish family and fled the Portuguese Inquisition for Ferrara, Italy, around 1543.
Moses Amon also known as Moses Hamon (Amon) was the son of Joseph Hamon, born in Spain. Going with his father to Constantinople, he became physician to Suleiman the Magnificent. This "famous prince and great physician," as he is called by Judah ibn Verga, accompanied the monarch on all his expeditions, enjoying great favor on account of his knowledge and skill.
Luis de Carvajal was governor of the Spanish province of Nuevo León in present-day Mexico, slave trader, and the first Spanish subject known to have entered Texas from Mexico across the lower Rio Grande.
The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back two thousand years. The city of Thessaloniki housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following the expulsion of Jews from Spain by Catholic rulers under the Alhambra Decree of 1492. It is the only known example of a city of this size in the Jewish diaspora that retained a Jewish majority for centuries. This community influenced the Sephardic world both culturally and economically, and the city was nicknamed la madre de Israel.
Josiah ben David Pardo (1626-1684) was a Dutch rabbi and hakham, who served as a Rabbi in Willemstad, Curaçao and in Port Royal, Jamaica. Josiah Pardo was one of the first rabbis who settled in the New World and a pioneer of many Jewish communal and educational institutions in the Western Hemisphere.
The Fort Nossa Senhora da Consolação, also known as Fort of Consolação Beach is located on the Atlantic coast of Portugal in the parish of Atouguia da Baleia, in the municipality of Peniche in Leiria District. It was built in 1645 during the Portuguese Restoration War on the initiative of D. Jerónimo de Ataíde, 6th Count of Atouguia and Lord of Peniche.
Samuel Abravanel HaNasi also spelt Abarbanel (1473-1551) was a prominent Sephardic-Italian financier, academic, and supporter of Italian Jewry. He is best known as the chief financier of viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo.
