What is the history of the Jews from Castilla y Leon?

Question

What is the history of the Jews from Castilla y Leon?

Answer 1

The ones that were not tortured to death in the Inquisition, made their way to AmeriKa... even many, if not most, of Columbus' crew were jews and there is substantial evidence that Columbus was ALSO a Jew.

Answer 2

1474-1504 Queen Isabel I de Trastamara of Castilla and León.  She was the daughter of Juan II of Castile and León by his second wife, Isabella of Portugal.

In 1469 she married Fernando de Aragón. This union of the two main Spanish kingdoms laid the foundation of Spain's future greatness. They had five children, including Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII of England, and Juana the Mad. Isabella and her husband (known together as "the Catholic monarchs") are remembered for initiating the Inquisition in 1478, for completing the reconquest of Spain from the Moors and for their ruthless expulsion of the Spanish Jews, both in 1492.

Answer 3

I, personally, know less about the Jews, in fact the general history, topography, and culture of Catilla-León than those of

Andalucía, and I recently travelled through some sites to the East, near Barcelona.  Contact me personally, and I´ll connect you to my photos...I think they´re pretty nice.

Some of the largest Jewish populations in Spain were, in fact, in Toledo, Córdoba, Sevilla.  There is a synagogue in Gerona which can trace its history, I believe, to before the first century BCE.  

Tarshish?  There are scholars who think Tarshish was SPAIN?  I never heard that!  That´s one of the reasons I like this site.  I keep learning new stuff.  

Jonathan makes  some good points, but saying that the Spanish Jews who weren´t killed in the Inquisition made it to America is a bit simplistic, and a bit off the mark, though I´ve heard there are many who believe Columbus was Jewish, or at least that enough of his sailors were to make him wait until one of our most holy days was over to sail on the first voyage.  There are those who dispute that, saying that it was weather that delayed the sailing.  But it´s an interesting theory.  One which will not be proven or disproven until technology improves.  (I won´t say never, because that´s a sure way to eventually be disproven.)  

The Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 went in many different directions.  It has been referred to as the second diaspora.  Some went to Northern Africa, many of them still own the keys to their houses in Spain, and still get married in their 15th century clothing.  Some went to Turkey, Greece, Yemen, and other places along the Mediterranean.  Even today, if you go to these places, people will ask Jews if they are Ashkenazi or Sephardi, in the same way that here in the US, one will be asked if they are Orthodox, Conservative or Reform?  Still others went to Portugal, and from there, were expelled again, when Spain swallowed Portugal in the 17th century for about a hundred years.  Some wound up in Netherlands, Northern Germany, and Poland.  There´s an area in Poland called Galitzia  (sound familiar, anyone?)  And they pronounce Yiddish a bit differently than others, and I remember my mother scolding one of her cousins for pronouncing something in that accent, saying: "Who do you think you are?  a Galit?"  Her tone saying that the cousin was putting on airs...Galits having been those who had more money and education than the poor Eastern European neighbors (Think of Tevye and his friends from Fiddler).  

Still others returned to Israel, and were the seed of the current country.   The language spoken there, I´m sure most know, is Hebrew, but many people do not realize that what we learned as "Modern Hebrew", not to be confused with "Ashkenazi Hebrew", which our parents speak/spoke, is actually Spanish accented Hebrew, brought back into the country by those very re-settlers.  The new settlers who came in dribbles over the years, and then in floods since the late 19th century, adopted that pronunciation, even though many of them came from Eastern Europe (largely Ashkenazi).

Hmmm.  Have I covered it all?  

Sign me, a Jewish Hispanista.  :)

Answer 4

Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule, before the Jews of Spain were expelled in 1492. Today, a few thousand Jews live in Spain, but the descendants of Spanish (and Portuguese) Jews, the Sephardic Jews, still make up around a fifth of the global Jewish population. The Jews of Spain speak Ladino, a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish) and Hebrew.

Some associate the country of Tarshish, as mentioned in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, I Kings, and Jonah, with a locale in southern Spain. If Tarshish was indeed Spain, Jewish contact with Iberia may date back to the time of Solomon. The relationship would likely have been one based on trade. Ezekiel 27.12 describes such a connection: "Tarshish did business with you out of the abundance of your great wealth; silver, iron, tin, and lead they exchanged with you for your wares", and as much is demonstrated in I Kings 10.22: "For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."

Answer 5

The King Fernando and Isabella were Castilla y Leon.  The Jews of Spain who did not convert to the Roman Catholic religion were expelled by them in 1492.