What happened in the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492?

The expulsion of the Jews

La expulsión de los judíos

31 March 1492. On 31 March 1492 Isabel and Fernando ordered every Jew in their kingdoms to become Christian or leave by the end of July.

Where: Spain, Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Morocco, Italy

What happened

On 31 March 1492 Isabel and Fernando ordered every Jew in their kingdoms to become Christian or leave by the end of July. The reason given was to stop Jews from drawing converts back to Judaism. Many converted; how many left is disputed. A recent CSIC study puts Castile's community at about 100,000, most of whom chose exile, and the arrivals in Portugal alone at 50,000–100,000; the Crown of Aragon had only ten to twelve thousand Jews. They went to Portugal, North Africa, Italy and the Ottoman Empire, and became the Sephardim, from Sefarad, the Hebrew name for Spain. Many kept their Spanish for five centuries, as Ladino. In 2015 Spain offered citizenship to their descendants.

Say it

Los judíos expulsados de España y sus descendientes se llaman sefardíes.

The Jews expelled from Spain and their descendants are called Sephardim.

Why it matters

It created the Sephardic diaspora and Judeo-Spanish, a form of fifteenth-century Castilian still spoken today, and it is the historical wound that Spain's 2015 nationality law set out to heal.

Read about it

• Los sefardíes y el ladino — The Sephardim and Ladino
• La Inquisición española — The Spanish Inquisition

Culture

• Flamenco

Connected

• Judeo-Spanish: the Spanish of the exiles (1492–)
• Judeo-Spanish: the Spanish of the exiles (1492–)
• Columbus reaches America (12 October 1492)
• The expulsion of the Moriscos (April 1609–January 1614)

• Before: The fall of Granada
• After: Columbus reaches America

Sources

1. Ley 12/2015, de 24 de junio, en materia de concesión de la nacionalidad española a los sefardíes originarios de España — Boletín Oficial del Estado
2. Converso Realities. Andrés de Fonseca and his Family (16th-17th centuries) — Sefarad (CSIC)
3. Reseña: los judíos de la Corona de Aragón — Hispania (CSIC), LVI/3, núm. 194 (1996)
4. Lo judío en España y Europa hoy (Adolfo García Ortega) — Centro Virtual Cervantes / Instituto Cervantes de Tokio
5. The History of the Inquisition — World History Encyclopedia
6. Isabella I of Castile — World History Encyclopedia