SEPHARDIC STORIES.pdf (original) (raw)

The Chronicles of the Sephardic Jews in Spain, Europe and in Morocco after 1492

In the year 1492, the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella captured Grenada from the Moors. The city surrendered on January 7, 1492 and the Catholic king and queen immediately ordered the expulsion of all Jews within three months’ time and the expropriation of all their wealth. The expulsion of this intelligent, cultured, and industrious ethnic and religious group was prompted only, in part, by the greed of the king and queen and the intensified nationalism of the people who had just brought the crusade against the Muslim Moors to a glorious close. The real motive was the religious zeal of the Church, the monarchies in presence, and the masses. Accordingly, the equivalent of 250 000 Jews were thrown in merchant ships and sent to other parts of Europe and North Africa, with no food or means to start a new life. It is considered one of the most inhuman mass expulsion in human history of people on the ground of their religious affiliation.

The “Sephardic” diaspora in Lisbon and Naples

QUAESTIONES MEDII AEVI NOVAE 29 , 2024

In this study, I focus on the formative years of the Iberian Jewish diaspora, particularly the period immediately following 1492. I examine the experience of exile endured by Jews from the crowns of Castile and Aragon who chose not to convert to Christianity after the promulgation of the Alhambra Decree. I discuss two major escape routes pursued by the displaced population: Portugal and Naples. While these destinations initially appeared to offer refuge to those forced from their homes, they ultimately imposed their own restrictions on religious freedom. My research centres on this tension between initial asylum and subsequent constraint.

Modern Spain and the Sephardim: Legitimizing Identities

2017

Modern Spain and the Sephardim: Legitimizing Identities addresses the legal, political, symbolic, and conceptual consequences of the development of a new framework of relations between the Spanish state and the descendants of the Jews expelled from the Iberian kingdoms in 1492 from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its unexpected consequences during World War II. This book aims to understand and explain the unchallenged idea of the Sephardim as a mix of Spaniard and Jew that emerged in Spain in the second half of the nineteenth century. Maite Ojeda-Mata examines the processes that led to this ambivalent conceptualization of Sephardic identity, as both Spanish and Jewish, and its consequences for the Sephardic Jews.