Sepharad, the Hebrew name for Spain, gave the Sephardim their name. Jews lived in Iberia for more than a thousand years before 1492, and in Muslim al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms they produced poets, philosophers, physicians and statesmen whose work is still read. The massacres of 1391, the Inquisition and the expulsion of 1492 ended open Jewish life in Spain and scattered its exiles from Morocco to the Ottoman Empire. This page covers Spain; see also Portuguese Jews and Who are Sephardic Jews?
Origins
The earliest Jewish evidence in Spain is a 2nd-century gravestone from Mérida, and a 3rd-century tombstone from Adra names a Jewish child, Annia Salomonula. Around 300 CE the Council of Elvira forbade Christians to marry Jews or eat with them, a sign that Jews were part of local life. The Visigothic kings, Catholic from 587, turned on them: Sisebut ordered conversion or expulsion in 613, and in 694 a council in Toledo condemned Jews to slavery.
Al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms
After the Muslim conquest of 711, Jewish life flourished in al-Andalus. Hasdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915–c. 970) served the caliph Abd al-Rahman III in Córdoba as physician and, in practice, foreign minister. Samuel ibn Naghrela (993–1056) became vizier of Granada and led its armies. Poets and thinkers such as Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Ezra wrote Hebrew poetry in Arabic forms; see Hebrew poetry in al-Andalus. The period had its violence too: in 1066 a mob in Granada killed Samuel’s son and successor, Joseph, and attacked the city’s Jews.
In the 12th century the Almohads forced the Jews of al-Andalus to convert or leave. The family of Maimonides, born in Córdoba in 1138, left after the Almohads took the city in 1148. Many Jews moved north to the Christian kingdoms, where they served kings as courtiers, tax farmers and physicians. In Toledo, Samuel ha-Levi, treasurer of Pedro I of Castile, built the synagogue now called El Tránsito. In 1263 Nahmanides of Girona defended Judaism before King James I of Aragon in the Barcelona Disputation, and in 1267 he left for the Land of Israel.
1391, the Inquisition and the expulsion
- 1391. On June 6, 1391, a mob attacked the Jews of Seville, killing about 4,000; violence spread to Córdoba, Toledo, Valencia, Barcelona, Majorca and other cities. Tens of thousands were baptized under threat, creating a large class of conversos, or New Christians. Some fled to North Africa. See the violence of 1391.
- 1478. Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Spanish Inquisition to pursue conversos suspected of practicing Judaism in secret. The first auto-da-fé was held in Seville in February 1481. Of about 150,000 people the Inquisition prosecuted over its history, an estimated 3,000–5,000 were executed.
- 1492. On March 31, 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella signed the Alhambra Decree, giving Jews until July 31 to convert or leave. Isaac Abravanel, a minister of the crown, tried in vain to have it revoked. Historians estimate that between 40,000 and 100,000 Jews left, and that many more converted to stay. The exiles went to Portugal, Navarre, North Africa, Italy and the Ottoman Empire; see the expulsion as a process.
After the expulsion
For more than three centuries no Jew could live openly in Spain, and the Inquisition continued to try conversos until it was abolished in 1834. Jews began to return in small numbers in the 19th century. In 1924 Spain allowed some descendants of the exiles to claim citizenship, and Spanish diplomats used that decree to protect some Sephardim during the Holocaust. On December 16, 1968, the Alhambra Decree was formally revoked, and in 1992, five hundred years after the expulsion, King Juan Carlos prayed at the Beth Yaacov Synagogue in Madrid with Israel’s president, Chaim Herzog.
In October 2015 Spain passed a law offering citizenship to descendants of the expelled Jews. By the deadline in 2019 the government had received 132,226 applications.
Language and legacy
The exiles carried the Castilian of 1492 with them. It became Judeo-Spanish in the Ottoman Empire and Haketia in northern Morocco, and many families kept the keys of their Spanish houses for generations. The legal and liturgical traditions of Spain’s rabbis became the basis of Sephardi practice worldwide; see Eastern Sephardim and North African Sephardim.
The community today
An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 Jews live in Spain today, mainly in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Many are descendants of Moroccan Jews who arrived in the 20th century. Medieval synagogues survive in Toledo and Córdoba, and the old Jewish quarters of Girona, Toledo and other towns can be visited.
Notable people
- Hasdai ibn Shaprut c. 915–c. 970 · Jaén Physician and diplomat at the court of Abd al-Rahman III in Córdoba.
- Solomon ibn Gabirol c. 1021–c. 1058 · Málaga Poet and philosopher; author of the Keter Malkhut and the Fons Vitae.
- Judah Halevi c. 1075–1141 · Toledo or Tudela Poet of longing for Zion; author of the Kuzari.
- Maimonides 1138–1204 · Córdoba Legal scholar, philosopher and physician; author of the Mishneh Torah.
- Nahmanides 1194–c. 1270 · Girona Rabbi and Torah commentator; defended Judaism at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263.
- Isaac Abravanel 1437–1508 · Lisbon Statesman and Bible commentator; served the crowns of Portugal and Castile, then left Spain with the exiles of 1492.
Sources and further reading
- Jane S. Gerber, The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience (Free Press, 1992).
- Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols. (Jewish Publication Society, 1961–1966).
- Jonathan Ray, After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry (NYU Press, 2013).
- “History of the Jews in Spain”, “Alhambra Decree” and “Spanish Inquisition”, Wikipedia.
- “More than 132,000 Sephardic Jews apply for Spanish nationality”, The Local, October 2, 2019.
Revised October 2026 to correct errors in an earlier version of this page.
