Search query: the jews of spain and portugal and the inquisition

Product: Gateway to the Moon: A Novel
Description: "If you haven’t read Mary Morris yet, start here. Now. Immediately."
—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things
From award-winning novelist Mary Morris comes the remarkable story of a remote New Mexican town coming to grips with a dark history it never imagined.

In 1492, the Jewish and Muslim populations of Spain were expelled, and Columbus set sail for America. Luis de Torres, a Spanish Jew, accompanies Columbus as his interpreter. His journey is only the beginning of a long migration, across many generations. Over the centuries, de Torres’ descendants travel from Spain and Portugal to Mexico, finally settling in the hills of New Mexico. Five hundred years later, it is in these same hills that Miguel Torres, a young amateur astronomer, finds himself trying to understand the mystery that surrounds him and the town he grew up in.
Entrada de la Luna is a place that holds a profound secret--one that its residents cannot even imagine. It is also a place that ambitious children, such as Miguel, try to leave. Poor health, broken marriages, and poverty are the norm. Luck is unusual. When Miguel sees a flyer for a babysitting job, he jumps at the opportunity, and begins work for a Jewish family new to the area. Rachel Rothstein is not the sort of parent Miguel expected. A frustrated artist, Rachel moved her family from New York in search of a fresh start, but so far New Mexico has not solved any of the problems she brought with her. Miguel loves the work, yet he is surprised to find many of the Rothstein family's customs similar to ones he’s grown up with and never understood.
Interwoven throughout the present-day narrative are the powerful stories of the ancestors of Entrada's residents, highlighting the torture, pursuit, and resistance of the Jewish people. A beautiful novel of shared history, Gateway to the Moon is a moving and memorable portrait of a family and its journey through the centuries.
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Product: A Ceiling Made of Eggshells
Description: In A Ceiling Made of Eggshells, Newbery Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine tells a moving and ambitious story set during the expulsion of Jews from Spain, about a young Jewish girl full of heart who must play her own role in her people’s epic history—no matter the sacrifice.

Surrounded by her large family, Loma is happy living in the judería of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, and wants nothing more than to someday have a family of her own.

Still, when her intimidating grandfather, her Belo, decides to bring her along on his travels, she’s excited to join him. Belo has the ear of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and Loma relishes her adventures with him, adventures that are beyond the scope of most girls of the time. She soon learns just how dangerous the world is for the Jews of Spain, and how her grandfather’s influence keeps their people safe.

But the older Loma gets, the more she longs to realize her own dreams—if Belo will ever allow her to leave his side.
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Product: Doña Gracia’s Gold Pendant: A Historical Novel
Description: Imagine having to guard the secret of your family under the threat of mortal danger

This historical novel is a story of love, jealousy, intrigue, mortal terror – of family secrets, courage, and devotion. It depicts the wide-ranging journey of Doña Gracia Nasi, a wealthy young Jewish widow from a family of forced converts, exiled from Spain in the 16th Century. Doña Gracia’s turbulent history comes to life, from age 12, when she is first told the secret of her forcibly converted family, to her escape from the terrors of the Inquisition in Portugal finally to Constantinople, via London, Antwerp, Venice, Ferrara, Lyon and Saloniki.

The true story of Doña Gracia – forced convert, tycoon, charmer of kings, savior of her people!

A successful businesswoman and visionary in a world in which women had no rights, Doña Gracia risks her life and her immense fortune to save her persecuted people. She powerfully bends kings to her will in an era of flourishing culture and the religious battles between Christians, Jews, and Moslems. Heralded the “Queen of the Jews,” she succeeded in obtaining a royal decree from the Ottoman sultan to settle the city of Tiberias. Meanwhile, her heartbreaking feud with her sister, Brianda, nearly sparked a world war!

Scroll up now to get your copy of Doña Gracia’s Gold Pendant!
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Product: The Inquisition in the New World: The History and Legacy of the Inquisition after Spain and Portugal Colonized the Americas
Description: *Includes pictures
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents

“When you tell someone your secret, your freedom is gone.” – Fernando de Rojas

None of these would hold a candle to the one birthed in the 15th century – the Spanish Inquisition. The notorious inquisition, the subject of multiple documentaries, movies, and other pop culture mediums, is an era darkly remembered for its oppression, barbarous torture, and religious tyranny. Serving as a backdrop for it all was a deadly disease, a man likened to Satan, and the tumultuous rise and fall of one of the most dreadful periods in European history.

It was roughly around this time that a period of European exploration began. Trade was able to increase in Europe around the world due to more effective ships being introduced, and some of the improvements that were made to the ships were first introduced by the Chinese. The introduction of multiple mast ships and the sternpost rudders allowed the ships to travel quicker and be more maneuverable. By the start of the 15th century, ships were now much larger and able to support long distance travel with a minimum number of crew aboard.

One explorer, Christopher Columbus, sought funding from the Portuguese to search for a passage to Asia by sailing westwards, but he was rejected. At this time in the late 15th century, Portugal’s domination of the western African sea routes prompted the neighboring Crown of Castile and the Catholic monarchs in modern Spain to search for an alternative route to south and east Asia (termed Indies), so they provided Columbus with the funding he required. Ultimately, Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, and Spanish settlements in the “West Indies” would eventually be established.

New Spain was established in the aftermath of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and as the most spectacular conquest and the richest province, New Spain quickly became the focus of Spanish America. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535, comprising a vast region of what is now the American Southwest, all of Mexico and Central America, the various Spanish held islands of the Caribbean, the “Spanish Main,” and the Spanish Far East Empire (comprised mainly of the Philippines). The Viceroyalty of New Castile (later named the Viceroyalty of Peru) was established in 1542 and comprised all of Spain’s South American territory, such as it was defined, excluding the Guianas. In 1610, the viceregency of New Granada was established with its capital in Cartagena, comprising the modern states of Columbia, Venezuela, a portion of Equator and Panama. In 1776, after much jostling with the southern frontier of Portuguese Brazil, the viceregency of Rio la Plata was formed, comprising Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, with Buenos Aires a sits capital. The Portuguese, of course, established their territory of Brazil with its capital and Rio de Janeiro.

Not surprisingly, as the Catholic empires expanded across the globe, persecution would travel with them, and the horrors experienced by indigenous populations in these colonies rivaled anything heretics back in Europe faced. The Inquisition in the New World: The History and Legacy of the Inquisition after Spain and Portugal Colonized the Americas looks at how the Inquisitions came to be, the manner in which it was exported west, and how people were tortured and executed. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Inquisition in the New World like never before.
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Product: The Jews of Spain and Portugal and the Inquisition (1877)
Description: When the Moors conquered Spain, Mocatta writes, they included in their train numbers of African Jews who greatly prospered and multiplied, but were later persecuted and expelled during the Inquisition.
"Very thoughtful and instructive, his pages thrill the most indifferent, his conclusions are eminently fair." - Celebrities, 1881
"Accurate and scholarly, many readers of Mr. Mocatta's book will be surprised." - The Academy, 1877
"An interesting sketch." -The Saturday Reiew, 1877

The position of the Jews in Spain and Portugal during a great part of the middle ages forms an exceptionally bright spot in their dark and chequered history, and developed some striking intellectual and moral features in an age when a great part of what now constitutes Civilisation, was wrapped in mental darkness.

The favoured position of the Jews in the Peninsula induced a vast Hebrew population to settle there; and their prosperity, attracting, as it did, the jealousy of the bulk of the people, would lead to their ultimate ruin.

The object of Mocatta's 1877 book "The Jews of Spain and Portugal and the Inquisition" is in the first place to shew the position of the Jews in the Peninsula daring the Middle Ages; and, secondly, to describe the means adopted for purging Spain and Portugal of Judaism, notably by bringing into play the fearful agencies of the Inquisition.

It commences by recounting the antiquity of Jewish settlements in the Peninsula, the incipient persecutions of the Roman rulers, the milder sway of the Arian princes, and afterwards the rabid intolerance of the later Gothic kings. Then follow the conquests of the Moors, bringing in their train numbers of Oriental and African Jews; the establishment of the Moorish Universities in Cordova, Seville, &c. at which numerous Hebrew scholars flourished and were encouraged; the consequent revival of Hebrew literature; the cultivation of philosophy, medicine, astronomy, grammar, biblical criticism, and poetry; and a cursory notice of the many eminent Jews who distinguished themselves in these various branches.

It reviews further the services rendered by the Jews in translating the works of the Arabic philosophers into Latin, and generally assisting in the great work of disseminating science and learning; the retention of Jewish scholars at the Courts of the Christian princes; the ability of the Jews in matters of trade and finance, which caused many of them to be appointed to some of the highest offices of the State; and the gradual absorption of wealth by them owing to their administrative talents and thrift.

Having traced the effect of the pursuit of wealth upon the Jews themselves, it notices the persecutions which steadily set in towards the end of the 14th century, all ending in a wholesale simulated conversion, effected under terror, of a large number of the Spanish Jews. Their covert attachment to the practices of Judaism, called forth the stringent animadversion of the clergy, which culminated in the introduction of the Inquisition into Spain.

The working of this tribunal in the two countries is shortly described, together with its baneful effects on the New Christians, as well as on the general population themselves. The various criminating processes, dungeons, and tortures, are also sketched out, and a description is given of an auto de ft. The Essay winds up with a short account of the gradual absorption of the New Christians in the mass of the population of the Peninsula, and of the fate and destiny of the vast numbers who escaped into more tolerant countries, and who established communities in the various centres of European civilisation, and elsewhere.
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Product: Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold
Description: After 525 years, the traditional literature recounting the history of Columbus’s epic voyage and first encounters with Native Americans remains Eurocentric, focused principally—whether pro- or anti-Columbus—on Columbus and the European perspective. A historical novel, Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold now dramatizes these events from a bicultural perspective, fictionalizing the beliefs, thoughts, and actions of the Native Americans who met Columbus side by side with those of Columbus and other Europeans, all based on a close reading of Columbus’s Journal, other primary sources, and anthropological studies.

The drama alternates among three Taíno chieftains—Caonabó, Guacanagarí, and Guarionex—and a Taíno youth Columbus captures, Spain’s Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, and Columbus himself. It depicts the education, loves and marriages, and other life experiences each brought to the unforeseen encounters and then their astonishment, fears, and objectives in 1492 and 1493. The focus includes the Taíno “discovery” of Europe, when Columbus hauls the captive and other Taínos back to Spain, as well as the chieftains’ reactions to the abusive garrison of seamen Columbus leaves behind in the Caribbean. Throughout, the Taíno protagonists are neither merely victims nor statistics, but personalities and actors comparable to the European, and their side of the story is forcefully told.

The novel weaves a fascinating tapestry of scenes and dialogues from the historical record, often incorporating text from primary sources. Isabella plots her dynastic marriage, argues with Ferdinand over who’s supreme, and wages war to expand their kingdoms. The chieftains take multiple wives to consolidate their rules, vie to marry the beautiful Anacaona, and battle Caribe raiders. An unknown Columbus conceives a fanciful voyage, marries advantageously to promote it, and yet suffers an agonizing decade of ridicule and rejection. Guacanagarí rescues Columbus when the Santa María sinks, but Caonabó questions Guacanagarí’s generosity, and Guarionex is vexed, having witnessed a religious prophecy of Taíno genocide inflicted by a “clothed people.” Columbus teaches his captive Christianity, initiating the following centuries’ collision of Christianity with Native American religion and spirits.

The Taíno stories depict both events known to have occurred (e.g., the chieftains’ ascensions to power, the prophecy of genocide, the captive’s baptism in Spain) and known practices or experiences (e.g., inter-island canoe travel, a hurricane, a Caribe wife raid, a batey game). The Isabella and Ferdinand stories include their establishment of the Inquisition, subjugation and Christianization of the Canary Islands, completion of the Reconquista, and expulsion of the Jews from Spain, illustrating European doctrines of conquest, enslavement, and involuntary conversion and how the sovereigns ruled over Old World peoples before encountering Native Americans. The Columbus stories portray his pre-1492 sailing experiences and the evolution of his world outlook, and his thoughts during the encounters embody the concepts underlying the European subjugation of Native Americans over the following centuries. Stark societal differences are illustrated, with the Europeans practicing African slavery and the Taínos sharing food as communal property.

A Sources section briefly discusses interpretations of historians and anthropologists contrary to the author’s presentation, as well as issues of academic disagreement.
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Product: Against the Inquisition
Description: “[A] stirring song of freedom.” —Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa

From a renowned prize-winning Argentinian author comes a historical novel based on the true story of one man’s faith, spirit, and resistance during the Spanish Inquisition in Latin America.

Born in sixteenth-century Argentina, Francisco Maldonado da Silva is nine years old when he sees his father, Don Diego, arrested one harrowing afternoon because of his beliefs. Raised in a family practicing its Jewish faith in secret under the condemning eyes of the Spanish Inquisition, Francisco embarks on a personal quest that will challenge, enlighten, and forever change him.

He completes his education in a monastery; he reads the Bible; he dreams of reparation; he dedicates his life to science, developing a humanistic approach and becoming one of the first accredited medical doctors in Latin America; and most of all, he longs to reconnect with his father in Lima, Perú, the City of Kings.

So begins Francisco’s epic journey to fight for his true faith, to embrace his past, and to draw from his father’s indomitable strength in the face of unimaginable persecution. But the arm of the Holy Inquisition is an intractable one. As it reaches for Francisco, he sheds his mask to defend his freedom. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, he will prove that while the body can be broken, the spirit fights back, endures, and survives.
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Product: Secret Jews: The Complex Identity of Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Judaism
Description: This book reviews types of Iberian Conversos (i.e. primarily forced but also voluntary Jewish converts to Christianity) from the late 14th to the 17th centuries and surveys the Christian and Jewish attitudes towards them. The book begins with a brief history of Jewish life in the Iberian Peninsula noting critical events such as the forced conversions of Jews under the Visigoths and the Almohades.

The direct events leading to mass conversions of Jews in the late 14th century and the aftermath in the 15th century are reviewed. This study examines texts and decrees that reveal that many Christians doubted the sincerity of these Jewish conversions to Christianity, and how they still regarded and treated Conversos as Jews. Different types of Conversos are then discussed. The challenges and situations each Converso faced were unique and produced different outlooks towards Jewish identity and faith in general. Various Jewish sources, including rabbinic responsa, sermons, and other documents are also analyzed.

These sources reveal the positive attitudes of Jews towards Conversos and the Jewish community’s desire for them to return to Judaism openly. Other studies suggest that as a whole, Conversos either fully retained their Jewish identity or sincerely embraced Christianity. This study argues that the Jewish identity of Conversos was complicated and existed along a broad spectrum ranging from complete abandonment to ardent Judaizing.

The book concludes by exploring the stories of descendants of Conversos in the United States, Latin America, and in Spain and Portugal, who are searching and often embracing a Jewish identity once thought lost.
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Product: Exiles in Sepharad: The Jewish Millennium in Spain
Description: The dramatic one-thousand-year history of Jews in Spain comes to life in Exiles in Sepharad. Jeffrey Gorsky vividly relates this colorful period of Jewish history, from the era when Jewish culture was at its height in Muslim Spain to the horrors of the Inquisition and the Expulsion.

Twenty percent of Jews today are descended from Sephardic Jews, who created significant works in religion, literature, science, and philosophy. They flourished under both Muslim and Christian rule, enjoying prosperity and power unsurpassed in Europe. Their cultural contributions include important poets; the great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides; and Moses de Leon, author of the Zohar, the core text of the Kabbalah.

But these Jews also endured considerable hardship. Fundamentalist Islamic tribes drove them from Muslim to Christian Spain. In 1391 thousands were killed and more than a third were forced to convert by anti-Jewish rioters. A century later the Spanish Inquisition began, accusing thousands of these converts of heresy. By the end of the fifteenth century Jews had been expelled from Spain and forcibly converted in Portugal and Navarre. After almost a millennium of harmonious existence, what had been the most populous and prosperous Jewish community in Europe ceased to exist on the Iberian Peninsula.
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Product: Shalom Sefarad: El Medico Sefardi (Novela Historica) (Spanish Edition)
Description: Shalom Sefarad es, probablemente, la mejor novela escrita sobre la historia de la expulsión de los judíos sefardíes, de la terrible equivocación que cometieron los Reyes Católicos. Un libro cargado de sabiduría y erudición, que asombrará al lector por su ritmo, pasión y belleza.
«La expulsión de los judíos de España en 1492 ha permanecido en la literatura, en la poesía y en las canciones de cuna del pueblo judío durante más de cinco siglos. ¿Cómo puede ser que España expulsara a los judíos? ¿A qué se debe tal decisión? Guarch escoge al judío español David Meziel, nacido en 1478 y expulsado a la edad de 14 años, como protagonista de su inquisición personal. Meziel vive 80 años y su vida lo lleva desde Portugal a Túnez, y de Egipto a la corte de Suleyman el Magnífico. Muchos judíos españoles anduvieron esos caminos, otros salieron por Ámsterdam y llegaron al Báltico, o huyeron por Italia, siguiendo a las tierras del Sultán. Meziel es expulsado formalmente de España, acogido por el mundo musulmán en sus andanzas mediterráneas. Se trata de un libro que toca la médula de la identidad de los españoles, de los hombres mediterráneos, de los judíos, moros y cristianos que formaron aquella España y que de variadas maneras siguen encontrándose en el día de hoy.»
Ioram Melcer, escritor y traductor de Shalom Sefarad al hebreo.
Shalom Sefarad: El Medico Sefardi (Novela Historica)
Almuzara
Español
Tapa dura
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Product: A Great Love of Small Proportion (MEDIEVAL SERIES)
Description: 'Beautifully rendered and highly recommended! - Historical Novel Review

Diego Sanchis is Seville's most famous painter; his glorious art fills every church in the famous city.

But for all the beauty in his soul, Diego himself is no oil painting. He sees beauty everywhere - until he looks in the mirror. He is resigned to a life of solitude.

Until one day he is asked to take on a new student.
Mercedes Goncalvez is the most desired young woman in the city, and her father is rich and powerful. They are so utterly different – but they discover their souls are the same.

But these are dangerous days to defy convention. The dungeons of the Inquisition wait for anyone who will not bend the knee, and betrayal can come at any time, from anywhere...
A novel of passion, art and genius from internationally bestselling author, Colin Falconer, set in Seville and Granada, during the last days of the fabled Alhambra.

'History and romance combine in this highly entertaining novel. I fell in love with Diego and his biting sarcasm and propensity to be bluntly honest. He is real, loveable, and easy to sympathize with. Likewise is Mercedes who struggles to break through the norms of the era to become an artist by her own right. Beautifully rendered and highly recommended!' - Historical Novel Review
More COLIN FALCONER MEDIEVAL FICTION
A Vain and Indecent Woman
Isabella: Braveheart of France (published by Lake Union)
MODERN HISTORICAL FICTION
The Unkillable Kitty O'Kane (published by Lake Union)
Loving Liberty Levine (published by Lake Union)
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Product: The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision
Description: In this completely updated edition of Henry Kamen’s classic survey of the Spanish Inquisition, the author incorporates the latest research in multiple languages to offer a new—and thought-provoking—view of this fascinating period. Kamen sets the notorious Christian tribunal into the broader context of Islamic and Jewish culture in the Mediterranean, reassesses its consequences for Jewish culture, measures its impact on Spain’s intellectual life, and firmly rebuts a variety of myths and exaggerations that have distorted understandings of the Inquisition. He concludes with disturbing reflections on the impact of state security organizations in our own time.
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Product: The Mapmaker's Daughter
Description: "Vividly detailed and beautifully written, this is a pleasure to read, a thoughtful, deeply engaging story of the power of faith to navigate history's rough terrain."—Booklist

How Far Would You Go To Stay True to Yourself?

Spain, 1492. On the eve of the Jewish expulsion from Spain, Amalia Riba stands at a crossroads. In a country violently divided by religion, she must either convert to Christianity and stay safe, or remain a Jew and risk everything.

It's a choice she's been walking toward her whole life, from the days of her youth when her family lit the Shabbat candles in secret. Back then, she saw the vast possibility of the world, outlined in the beautiful pen and ink maps her father created. But the world has shifted and contracted since then.

The Mapmaker's Daughter is a stirring novel about identity, exile, and what it means to be home.

"A close look at the great costs and greater rewards of being true to who you really are. A lyrical journey to the time when the Jews of Spain were faced with the wrenching choice of deciding their future as Jews—a pivotal period of history and inspiration today."—Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth I

"The many twists and turns in the life of the mapmaker's daughter, Amalia, mirror the tenuous and harrowing journey of the Jewish community in fifteenth-century Iberia, showing how family and faith overcame even the worst the Inquisition could inflict on them."—Anne Easter Smith, author of Royal Mistress and A Rose for the Crown

"A powerful love story ignites these pages, making the reader yearn for more as they come to know Amalia and Jamil, two of the most compelling characters in recent historical fiction. An absolute must-read!"—Michelle Moran, author of The Second Empress and Madam Tussaud
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Product: The Virgin of the Wind Rose: A Christopher Columbus Mystery-Thriller
Description: "If you love Steve Berry, Dan Brown or Umberto Eco, you may have a new author favorite in Glen Craney." -- BestThrillers.com

A mysterious Templar code has eluded scholars for centuries.
Does the key to unlocking its explosive message lie buried with Christopher Columbus?
Rookie State Department lawyer Jaqueline Quartermane was never much good at puzzles.
But now, assigned to investigate the ritual murder of an American missionary in Ethiopia, she must solve the world's oldest palindrome—the infamous SATOR Square—to thwart a religious conspiracy that reaches back to the 15th century and a secretive monastic order of Portuguese sea explorers.
Separated by half a millennium, two espionage plots dovetail in this breakneck dual-narratives thriller, driven by history's most closely guarded mystery....
... the shocking secret that Columbus took to the grave.
If you're a fan of monastic cryptography, secret societies, relic heists, and esoteric conspiracies, don't wait to join the search for The Virgin of the Wind Rose.

What readers are saying:

"Impeccably researched, high-velocity!"
-- BEST THRILLERS
"An exciting journey across time, with more twists and turns than a strawberry Twizzler.... Highly recommended."
-- QUARTERDECK MAGAZINE
"Grips you in its teeth and whirls you through history... Naturally this novel will be compared to the books of Dan Brown but the quality of writing in The Virgin of the Wind Rose has the edge for me."
-- ROSIE AMBER REVIEWS

"Fantastic and enthralling.... [W]ill keep you glued to your couch. Most certainly a tour-de-force."
-- DAVID BEN EFRAIM, QBR REVIEWS
"I stayed up all night to finish this great read and was left wanting more... Mr. Craney is a master of holding back and building the suspense."
-- ONE BOOK SHY OF A FULL SHELF
"Move over, Dan Brown!"
-- SWEET MYSTERIES
Books and Benches Magazine Book-of-the-Year Finalist
indieBRAG Medallion

START READING THE VIRGIN OF THE WIND ROSE TODAY.
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Product: The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition
Description: The unexpected and moving story of an American journalist who works to uncover her family’s long-buried Jewish ancestry in Spain.
Raised a Catholic in California, New York Times journalist Doreen Carvajal is shocked when she discovers that her background may actually be connected to conversos in Inquisition-era Spain , Jews who were forced to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity or face torture and death. With vivid childhood memories of Sunday sermons, catechism, and the rosary, Carvajal travels to the south of Spain, to the centuries-old Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera, to investigate her lineage and recover her family’s original religious heritage.
In Arcos, Carvajal is struck by the white pueblo's ancient beauty and the difficulty she encounters in probing the town's own secret history of the Inquisition. She comes to realize that fear remains a legacy of the Inquisition along with the cryptic messages left by its victims. Back at her childhood home in California, Carvajal uncovers papers documenting a family of Carvajals who were burned at the stake in the 16th-century territory of Mexico. Could the author’s family history be linked to the hidden history of Arcos? And could the unfortunate Carvajals have been her ancestors?
As she strives to find proof that her family had been forced to convert to Christianity six-hundred years ago, Carvajal comes to understand that the past flows like a river through time –and that while the truth might be submerged, it is never truly lost.
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Product: The Jews of Spain
Description: The history of the Jews of Spain is a remarkable story that begins in the remote past and continues today. For more than a thousand years, Sepharad (the Hebrew word for Spain) was home to a large Jewish community noted for its richness and virtuosity. Summarily expelled in 1492 and forced into exile, their tragedy of expulsion marked the end of one critical phase of their history and the beginning of another. Indeed, in defiance of all logic and expectation, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain became an occasion for renewed creativity. Nor have five hundred years of wandering extinguished the identity of the Sephardic Jews, or diminished the proud memory of the dazzling civilization, which they created on Spanish soil. This book is intended to serve as an introduction and scholarly guide to that history.
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