Part one of this article appeared on Thursday, and can be read here.

Conditions Worsen -Massacres and Forced Conversions

When Henry II ascended the throne in 1369, a new era began for the Jews of suffering and persecution. Henry II instituted decrees that weakened the Jews politically, financially, and physically. He decreed that Jews be kept far from palaces, were forbidden to hold public office, could not ride on mules, and must wear distinct badges to indicate that they were Jewish and were forbidden to bear arms and sell weapons.

Under the rule of John I in 1379, the situation deteriorated even further for the Jews, as the government began making demands regarding Judaism itself. The Jews were forced to change prayers deemed offensive to the Church, and non-Jews were forbidden to convert to Judaism.

After the death of King John I in 1390, chaos spread in Spain, which led to many attacks on the Jewish community. The riots spread across the country, synagogues were destroyed, and tens of thousands of Jews were murdered. On June 6, the mob attacked the Juderia in Seville from all sides and murdered 4,000 Jews. Many Jews chose to convert to Christianity as the only way to escape death.

On the legislative front, antisemitic laws were passed to impoverish and subjugate the Jews and, it was assumed, lead them to convert to Christianity out of desperation. Under these laws, Jews were forbidden to practice medicine; forbidden to sell bread, wine, flour, or meat; prohibited from engaging in handicraft or any form of trade; forbidden to hold public office or act as a money-broker; prohibited from carrying arms or hire Christian servants or give presents or visit Christians; forbidden to trim their beards or cut their hair. Finally, they were also absolutely forbidden to leave the country and seek an end to their plight.

Although these laws aimed to humiliate the Jews, the entire kingdom of Spain was negatively impacted in the extreme. The rules had unwittingly stopped nearly all commerce and industry and shaken the country’s finances to its foundation.

The Great Disputation of Tortosa: The End is in Sight

In 1413, a virulently antisemitic preacher, Vincent Ferrer, the Spanish anti-pope Benedict XIII, and a Jewish apostate Yehoshua HaLorki devised a plan they were sure would lead to the conversion of the remaining Jews of Spain. They would hold a massive debate between the Jews and the Christians, with the pope presiding. According to their plan, the Christian representatives would undoubtedly emerge triumphant and compel the defeated Jews to accept Christianity.

Unlike the disputation in which Nachmanides successfully defended the Jews of Spain, the Disputation of Tortosa was set up with a clear bias toward the Christians. The Christian side always had the final word, and the king who served as the judge was negatively disposed toward the Jews and not open to an honest debate.

The debate lasted over a year, and the Jewish presentation became more persuasive over time. The Christians began to pressure the Jewish representatives to limit their arguments, and the Jews realized it was not to their benefit to continue. Benedict claimed victory at the end of the debate, and copies of the Talmud were confiscated and burned.

The debate was a demoralizing experience for Jewish Spain. By the middle of the 15th century, many Spanish Jews recognized that a Jewish community was no longer viable in their homeland. Looking for alternatives, in 1473, the Jews offered to buy Gibraltar from the king as a haven for their community, but the offer was refused.

Ferdinand and Isabella

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are remembered as the monarchs who backed Christopher Columbus in his voyage to the Americas. However, in Jewish history, they are remembered as the rulers who expelled the entire Jewish community.

The marriage of Ferdinand V of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 unified Spain and transformed it from a combination of provinces into a mighty kingdom. Ironically, the royal marriage had been arranged by a wealthy and learned Jewish leader, Abraham Senior, who tragically converted to Catholicism in 1492 rather than being expelled from Spain.

Isabella was a fervent Christian and, in partnership with the pope, set up an Inquisition in 1478 to find and fight heresy in the Christian world. The royal decree that founded the Inquisition explicitly stated that the Inquisition was instituted to search out and punish converts from Judaism who transgressed against Christianity by secretly adhering to Jewish beliefs and observing Jewish laws. No other group was mentioned, making it clear that Jews were the primary target of this decree.

The primary goal of the Inquisition was to expose Jews who were not genuine converts to Christianity but were still secretly practicing Judaism. In fact, this often was the case. It came to the point that the Christians would call converted Jews “New Christians” to distinguish them from the “Old (authentic) Christians.” Derogatorily, Jewish converts to Christianity were also called conversos, meaning “converts,” or worse yet, Marranos, which means “filthy pigs.”

In 1483, Tomas de Torquemada was appointed Grand Inquisitor. From this point onward, the Inquisition became infamous for its brutality. Torquemada established procedures for the Inquisition, where a court would be installed in a new area, and residents were encouraged to report information regarding Jews observing Jewish practices.

Evidence accepted included the absence of chimney smoke on Saturdays (a sign the family might secretly be honoring the Sabbath), buying many vegetables before Passover, or purchasing meat from a converso butcher. Then the court would employ physical torture to extract confessions and burn those who would not submit at the stake.

The Expulsion

The year 1492 marked the fall of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and the year Ferdinand and Isabella decided to expel all Jews from Spain. The infamous Alhambra Decree, which ordered the expulsion, was issued in January 1492. This time, the monarchs did not target Jewish converts to Christianity but Jews who had never converted.

The main reason stated in the Edict of Expulsion was to prevent Jews from re-Judaizing the conversos. Another factor that certainly played a significant role was that Jewish money was needed to rebuild the kingdom after the costly war against the Muslims. The simplest way to acquire the funds was to expel the Jews and confiscate the wealth and property they would leave behind. (This was a method repeated numerous times during the Middle Ages in Europe, as European countries would expel the Jews to remove their debts and take the money from the Jews that were forced out of their country.)

The Jews, led by Don Isaac Abarbanel, tried to get the edict revoked. Abarbanel was a great Torah scholar and a leading rabbi, and had also served as the treasurer of Spain. As the most influential Jew in Spain at the time, he tried hard to rescind the expulsion order and even offered the monarchs 300,000 ducats for a reprieve.

He almost succeeded in getting the monarchs to rescind the edict, but Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada thwarted his attempt.

According to the legend, Torquemada, who had an enormous influence over Queen Isabella, entered the room where Abarbanel was pleading his cause. Enraged, he threw the cross at the Queen, hitting her in the head, and yelled: “Judas sold his master (Jesus) for 30 pieces of silver. Now you would sell him anew!” With that, Abarbanel’s pleas were dismissed, and the edict remained.

Yet, Don Isaac Abarbanel was so crucial to the monarchs that they offered him a special dispensation to remain in Spain without converting, including a caveat that another nine Jews could stay with him so he could pray with a minyan. He refused their offer and led the Jews of Spain as they went into exile.

The calendar date on which the Spanish Jewish community ended and went into exile was August 2, 1492. The original date was intended to be July 31, but Torquemada extended it by a few days, unwittingly switching it to the date corresponding to the 9th of Av, Tisha B’Av. This was the day of the destruction of both the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem, a message the Jews understood as a reminder that their exile was but a continuation of the original exile hundreds of years earlier. As the Jews left Spain, Abarbanel directed that music be played, even though it was Tisha B’Av, to raise the spirits of the Jews and provide comfort and hope for the future.

Tens of thousands of Jews chose to remain by agreeing to convert, at least in name. The number of Jews who left Spain is not even approximately known. Historians of the period give incredibly high figures: Historian Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abarbanel of 300,000.

Most of the Jews who fled Spain made their way across the border to Portugal. However, only five years later, Portugal forced the choice of conversion or death upon the Jews in its country, and Jews who could get out were on the run again.

Thousands of Jews who were exiled from Spain chose to go to Turkey. The Sultan of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Bayezid II, welcomed them and observed, “They tell me that Ferdinand of Spain is a wise man, but he is a fool. For he takes his treasure and sends it all to me.”

Many Jews also chose to go to Italy, Holland, and the New World.

Christopher Columbus

On August 3, 1492, the day after the expulsion, Christopher Columbus left on his famed voyage of discovery. His diary begins: “In the same month in which their Majesties issued the edict that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month, they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery of the Indies.”

With the 20-20 hindsight that history gives us, we can see the deeper connection between Columbus’s voyage to America and the expulsion. Precisely as one of the most vibrant Jewish communities of Medieval Europe was ending, God prepared for the founding of a place for Jews seeking freedom from persecution – America.

After hundreds of years, in 1834, the Inquisition was abolished, and Jews could return to Spain. However, the edict of expulsion was only repealed in 1968. This meant that from 1868 until 1968, Jews were allowed to live in Spain as individuals but not to practice Judaism as a community.

Spain During the Holocaust

When the Second World War broke out, Spain declared neutrality but supported the Nazis in the initial stages. Yet, Spain chose not to deport Jews and, in fact, allowed 25,600 Jews to use Spain as an escape route from the Nazis. Spanish diplomats protected approximately 4,000 Sephardic Jews in France and the Balkans, although this was against the will of their superiors. Also, in 1944, the Spanish Embassy in Hungary aided in the rescue of Budapest’s Jews by accepting 2,750 refugees.

Legend has it that General Franco refused to hand over the Jews to the Nazis despite their unofficial alliance because so many in Spain had “Jewish” blood, including Franco himself, and the Nazis would have included them in their decrees.

Contemporary Antisemitism

Remnants of antisemitism continue to exist in Spain, although at times it is the “new antisemitism” of anti-Zionism. Spain did not even recognize the state of Israel until 1986, when it did so as a condition for entering the European Union. Furthermore, according to research by the Anti-Defamation League and the Pew Polls, the Spanish public still harbors many antisemitic stereotypes, more so than in other Western European countries.

Even within the culture of Spain, antisemitism, going back centuries, can be heard. For example, In León, they drink lemonade mixed with a red wine called matar judíos (“kill Jews”). Instead of “cheers,” a local drinking phrase is “We are going to kill the Jews.” For hundreds of years, a village in northern Spain was named Castrillo Matajudios (“Castrillo Kill the Jews”). The residents finally voted to change the name in 2014.

Spain Today and The Lesson that Remains

Approximately 45,000 Jews live in Spain today. The majority live in Madrid, Barcelona, and southern Spain.

The Spanish Parliament approved a measure on June 11, 2015, to restore citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jewish individuals who were expelled during the Inquisition. The law allows relatives of individuals who were expelled in 1492 to apply for dual citizenship. To date, 36,000 Jews have been granted citizenship.

Nevertheless, for Jews, the tragic history of Spain is a reminder that a Jew’s home is never in exile.

There was indeed a Golden Age of Spain, but for the Jews, it was always a bit tarnished. Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, who lived at the time of the Golden Age, wrote, “Although I am in the West, my heart is in the East.”

Rabbi Menachem Levine is the CEO of JDBY-YTT, the largest Jewish school in the Midwest. He served as Rabbi of Congregation Am Echad in San Jose, CA from 2007 – 2020. He is a popular speaker and has written for numerous publications. Rabbi Levine’s personal website is https://thinktorah.org. A version of this article was originally published by Aish.