Expulsion of Jews from Spain in the context of "Spanish history"

The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes (Greek: Ῥωμανιῶτες, Rhōmaniôtes; Hebrew: רומניוטים, romanized: Romanyotim) are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community. They are one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence and the oldest Jewish community in Europe. The Romaniotes have been, and even remain historically distinct from the Sephardim that have settled in Ottoman Greece after the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal after 1492.

Their distinct language was Yevanic, a Greek dialect that contained Hebrew along with some Aramaic and Turkish words, but today's Romaniotes speak Modern Greek or the languages of their new home countries. Their name is derived from the endonym Rhōmanía (Ῥωμανία), which refers to the Eastern Roman Empire ("Empire of the Romans", Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων). Large Romaniote communities were located in Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Arta, Preveza, Volos, Chalcis, Thebes, Corinth, Patras, and on the islands of Corfu, Crete, Zakynthos, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, and Cyprus, among others. Additionally, the historically large community of Jews in Bulgaria was Romaniote until the arrival of Sephardim and Ashkenazim fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe.

The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, ordering the expulsion of unconverted Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. Its primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of the remaining Jews on Spain's large converso New Christian population, converted from Judaism, to minimize the possibility that the latter and their descendants would be able to secretly practice their former faith.

Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra Decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism in order to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.

Sepharad (/ˈsɛfəræd/ SEF-ər-ad or /səˈfɛərəd/ sə-FAIR-əd; Hebrew: סְפָרַד, romanized: Səp̄āraḏ, Israeli pronunciation: [sfaˈʁad]; also Sfard, Spharad, Sefarad, or Sephared) is the Hebrew-language name for the Iberian Peninsula, referring to the regions of present-day Spain and Portugal. By the 9th century, the term had come to denote this geographic area in Jewish usage. The designation Sephardic Jews refers to Jews whose ancestors lived in the Iberian Peninsula and were forcibly expelled beginning in 1492. In modern Hebrew, Sepharad primarily refers to Spain.

The term Sepharad appears in the Biblical Book of Obadiah as the name of some now-unidentified location that was a destination of Jews exiled from Jerusalem. The Targum Jonathan is the earliest known source of the interpretation of the name as referring to Spain; it translates Sepharad into Aramaic as Ispamia.

The Jewish Golden Age in Spain began shortly after the Muslim conquest in the 8th century and lasted until the Christian Reconquista resulted in the expulsion of Jews by the 15th century. During this period, Jews living in what was collectively called al-Andalus (Muslim-ruled Spain and Portugal) experienced relative tolerance, prosperity, and socio-cultural integration within the broader Muslim society that had come to dominate the region. Owing to this environment, Jewish culture flourished and several Jews rose to prominence in scholarly and religious spheres, including Maimonides, Hasdai ben Shaprut, Shmuel ha-Nagid, Solomon ben Judah, and Judah ha-Levi. The Jewish community of al-Andalus also contributed greatly to the Muslim world's advancements in astronomy, medicine, and science.

Jews under Muslim authority in Spain and Portugal were designated as dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي)—a legally protected class of non-Muslim subjects—in exchange for paying jizya (جِزْيَة) and accepting certain restrictions. Although they still held a second-class status relative to Muslims, the dhimmi framework in al-Andalus gradually allowed for the development of stability and co-existence that was otherwise uncommon in Jewish history in Europe; Jews were able to occupy a variety of positions in government and diplomacy, medicine, and science, while also playing a key role in the Muslim world's transmission of classical knowledge to Christian Europe. Further, the Jewish Golden Age in Spain brought about remarkable achievements in Hebrew poetry, religious scholarship, grammar, and philosophy. Some historians, however, view this to be more of a myth.

Various Jewish communities were among the peoples who came under Muslim rule with the spread of Islam, which began in the early 7th century in the time of Muhammad and the early Muslim conquests.

Under Islamic rule, Jews, along with Christians and certain other pre-Islamic monotheistic religious groups, were considered "People of the Book" and given the status of dhimmi (Arabic: ذِمّيّ 'of the covenant'), which granted them certain rights while imposing specific obligations and restrictions. The treatment of Jews varied significantly depending on the period and location. For example, during the Almohad period in North Africa and Spain, Jews faced harsh persecution and were forced to convert to Islam, flee, or face severe consequences. In contrast, during waves of persecution in medieval Europe, many Jews found refuge in Muslim lands where conditions were comparatively more tolerant during certain eras, such as in the Ottoman Empire, where many Jews living in Spain migrated to after the Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

Maghrebi Jews (מַגּרֶבִּים‎ or מַאגרֶבִּים‎, Maghrebim), are a Jewish diaspora group with a long history in the Maghreb region of North Africa, which includes present-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. These communities were established long before the Arab conquest, and continued to develop under Muslim rule during the Middle Ages. Maghrebi Jews represent the second-largest Jewish diaspora group, with their descendants forming a major part of the global Jewish population.

Maghrebi Jews lived in multiple communities in North Africa for over 2,000 years, with the oldest Jewish communities present during Roman times and possibly as early as within Punic colonies of the Ancient Carthage period. Under early Muslim rule, Jews flourished in major urban centers across the region. However, they also faced periods of persecution, notably under the Almohads. Before and after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution settled in North Africa. Over time, Maghrebi Jews largely mixed with the newly arrived Sephardic Jews, and in most cases, they adopted the Sephardic Jewish identity.

The history of the Jews in Egypt goes back to ancient times. Egyptian Jews or Jewish Egyptians refer to the Jewish community in Egypt who mainly consisted of Egyptian Arabic-speaking Rabbanites and Karaites. Though Egypt had its own community of Egyptian Jews, after the Jewish expulsion from Spain more Sephardi and Karaite Jews began to migrate to Egypt, and then their numbers increased significantly with the growth of trading prospects after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. As a result, Jews from many territories of the Ottoman Empire as well as Italy and Greece started to settle in the main cities of Egypt, where they thrived (see Mutammasirun).The Ashkenazi community, mainly confined to Cairo's Darb al-Barabira quarter, began to arrive in the aftermath of the waves of pogroms that hit Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.

In the aftermath of the 1948 Palestine War, the 1954 Lavon Affair, and the 1956 Suez War, Jewish (estimated at between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1948), and European groups like the French and British emigrated; much of their property was also confiscated (see 20th century departures of foreign nationals from Egypt).

The General Charter of Jewish rights known as the Statute of Kalisz, and the Kalisz Privilege, granted Jews in the Middle Ages some protection against discrimination in Poland compared to other places in Europe. These rights included exclusive jurisdiction over Jewish matters to Jewish courts, and established rules of evidence for criminal matters involving Christians and Jews.

The statute was issued by the Duke of Greater Poland Bolesław the Pious on September 8, 1264 in Kalisz. After the unification of Poland, the statute was then ratified by some subsequent Polish Kings: Casimir the Great in 1334, Casimir IV in 1453, and Sigismund I in 1539. This was in contrast to other rulers in Western and Southern Europe at the time who forced Jews to emigrate: England in 1290, France in 1306, Spain in 1492.