page_title: Expulsion of Jews from Spain
section_title: The end of religious diversity in Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Expulsion of Jews from Spain / Consequences / The end of religious diversity in Spain
caption_attribution_description: Español: Monumento a la tolrancia Eduardo Chillida Sevilla 1992
context_page_description: Following the Alhambra Decree in 1492, to eliminate their influence on Spain's large converso population and ensure its members did not revert to Judaism, many Jews in Spain either converted or were expelled. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted to Catholicism as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. Those who remained chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and the prior persecution, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. An unknown number returned to Spain in the following years.:17 This led to Mass migration of Jews from Spain to Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean Basin. This can be seen with Jewish surnames as they began to show up in Italy and Greece at this time, like Faraggi, Farag and Farachi a surname which originates from the Spanish City of Fraga.
  The edict was formally and symbolically revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second Vatican Council.
context_section_description: As Joseph Perez pointed out, "In 1492 the story of Spanish Judaism ends, which will only lead to an underground existence, always threatened by the Spanish Inquisition and the suspicion of a public opinion that saw In Jews, Judaizers and even sincere converts to natural enemies of Catholicism and Spanish idiosyncrasy, as understood and imposed by some ecclesiastical and intellectual leaders, in an attitude that bordered on racism."
  Historic accounts of the numbers of Jews who left Spain were based on speculation, and some aspects were exaggerated by early accounts and historians: Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abravanel of 300,000. While few reliable statistics exist for the expulsion, modern estimates by scholars from the University of Barcelona estimated the number of Sephardic Jews at the 15th Century at 400,000 out of a total population of approximately 7.5 people in all of Spain, out of whom about half (at least 200,000) or slightly more (300,000) remained in Iberia as Conversos; others who tried to estimate the Jews' demographics based on tax returns and population estimates of communities are much lower, with Kamen stating that, of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews and 200,000 conversos, about 40,000 emigrated. Another approximately 50,000 Jews received a Christian baptism so as to remain in Spain; many secretly kept some of their Jewish traditions and thus becoming the target of the Inquisition.  The Jews of the kingdom of Castile emigrated mainly to Portugal (where the entire community was forcibly converted in 1497) and to North Africa. The Jews of the kingdom of Aragon fled to other Christian areas including Italy, rather than to Muslim lands as is often assumed. Although the vast majority of conversos simply assimilated into the Catholic dominant culture, a minority continued to practice Judaism in secret, gradually migrated throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, mainly to areas where Sephardic communities were already present as a result of the Alhambra Decree.
  The situation of those who returned was regularized with an order of November 10. 1492, in which it was established that civil and ecclesiastical authorities had to be witnesses to baptism, and in the event that they had been baptized before returning, evidence and testimonials that confirm it. They were also able to recover all their goods for the same price at which they had sold them. Returns are documented at least until 1499. On the other hand, a provision of the Royal Council of October 24, 1493, determined harsh sanctions for those who reviled these new Christians - calling them "transgressors," for example.
  As for the economic impact of the expulsion, it seems to be ruled out that it was a hard setback and stopped the birth of capitalism, which would be one of the causes of the decline of Spain. As Joseph Perez has pointed out, "in view of the published literature on taxation and economic activities, there is no doubt that the Jews were no longer a source of relevant wealth, neither as bankers nor as renters nor as merchants who developed the expulsion of the Jews produced problems at the local level but not a national catastrophe. It is unreasonable to attribute to that event the decadence of Spain and its supposed inability to adapt to the transformations of the modern world. What we now know shows that sixteenth-century Spain was not precisely an economically backward nation. [....] In strictly demographic and economic terms, and apart from human aspects, the expulsion did not imply for Spain any substantial deterioration, but only a temporary crisis Quickly overtaken."
  A copy of the Amsterdam Gazette published in the Netherlands on September 12, 1672. The Hebrews of Amsterdam printed a newspaper showing the interest of the Jewish community in what was happening at that time in Madrid and , It also read the news in Spanish - after 180 years of being expelled from its ancestral soil (1492).
  Document preserved and exhibited in Beth Hatefutsoth, Nahum Goldmann Museum and House of the Diasporas
caption: Monument to Tolerance in Seville, located in the place where five Jews were burned alive.
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