thumb|A service in a Spanish [[synagogue, from the Sister Haggadah (c. 1350). The Alhambra Decree would bring Spanish Jewish life to a sudden end.]]

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 minimize 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.<sup>:17</sup>

In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted Spanish citizenship to a part of the Sephardic Jewish diaspora, though few people benefited from it in practice. The decree was then formally and symbolically revoked on 16 December 1968 by the regime of Francisco Franco, following the Second Vatican Council. This was a full century after Jews had been openly practising their religion in Spain and synagogues were once more legal places of worship under Spain's Laws of Religious Freedom.

In 2015, the government of Spain passed a law allowing dual citizenship to Jewish descendants who apply, to "compensate for shameful events in the country's past". Thus, Sephardic Jews who could prove that they are the descendants of those Jews expelled from Spain because of the Alhambra Decree would "become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality". The Spanish law expired in 2019, and new applications for Spanish citizenship on the basis of Sephardic Jewish family heritage are no longer allowed. However, the descendants of the Jews exiled from the Iberian Peninsula may still apply for Portuguese citizenship.

Background

By the end of the 8th century, Arab Muslim forces had conquered and settled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Compared to the repressive policies of the Visigothic Kingdom, who, starting in the sixth century had enacted a series of anti-Jewish statutes which culminated in their forced conversion and enslavement, the tolerance of the Muslim Moorish rulers of al-Andalus allowed Jewish communities to thrive.

The Reconquista, or the gradual reconquest of Muslim Iberia by the Christian kingdoms in the North, was driven by a powerful religious motivation: to reclaim Iberia for Christendom following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania centuries before. By the 14th century, most of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal) had been reconquered by the Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, León, Galicia, Navarre, and Portugal.

During the Christian re-conquest of Iberia, the Muslim kingdoms in Spain became less welcoming to the dhimmi. In the late 12th century, the Muslims in al-Andalus invited the fanatical Almohad dynasty from North Africa to push the Christians back to the North.

As the Reconquista drew to a close, overt hostility against Jews in Christian Spain became more pronounced, finding expression in brutal episodes of violence and oppression. In the early fourteenth century, the Christian kings vied to prove their piety by allowing the clergy to subject the Jewish population to forced sermons and disputations. The Spanish expulsion was succeeded by at least five expulsions from other European countries, but the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was both the largest of its kind and, officially, the longest lasting in western European history.

Over the four-hundred-year period during which most of these decrees were implemented, the causes of expulsion gradually changed. At first, expulsions of Jews (or absence of expulsions) were exercises of royal prerogatives. Jewish communities in medieval Europe often were protected by and associated with monarchs because, under the feudal system, Jews often were a monarch's only reliable source of taxes.

These issues came to a head during Ferdinand and Isabella's final conquest of Granada. The independent Islamic Emirate of Granada had been a tributary state to Castile since 1238. Jews and conversos played an important role during this campaign because they had the ability to raise money and acquire weapons through their extensive trade networks.

The text of the decree stated, that despite previous attempts to segregate Jews into separate quarters and the ongoing Inquisition, interaction between Jews and Christians persisted. It accused Jews of trying "to subvert the holy Catholic faith" by attempting to "draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs", by teaching them Jewish laws, rituals, and beliefs, providing religious materials and ritually prepared food, performing circumcisions, and ultimately convincing them that Judaism is the only true faith, causing great harm to Catholicism. Many of these Jews also settled in other parts of the Balkans ruled by the Ottomans such as the areas that are now Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia. Concerning this incident, Bayezid II is alleged to have commented, "those who say that Ferdinand and Isabella are wise are indeed fools; for he gives me, his enemy, his national treasure, the Jews."

A majority of Sephardim migrated to Portugal, where they gained only a few years of respite from persecution. About 600 Jewish families were allowed to stay in Portugal following an exorbitant bribe until the Portuguese king entered negotiations to marry the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Caught between his desire for an alliance with Spain and his economic reliance on the Jews, Manuel I declared the Jewish community in Portugal (perhaps then some 10% of that country's population) Christians by royal decree unless they left the country. In return, he promised the Inquisition would not come to Portugal for 40 years. Pope Alexander VI allowed the refugees to settle in Rome against the protest of the local Jewish community and the exhortations of king Ferdinand to also expel the Jews from the Papal states.

Throughout history, scholars have given widely differing numbers of Jews expelled from Spain. However, the figure is likely to be below the 100,000 Jews who had not yet converted to Christianity by 1492, possibly as low as 40,000. Such figures exclude the significant number of Jews who returned to Spain due to the hostile reception they received in their countries of refuge, notably Fes (Morocco). The situation of returnees was legalized with the Ordinance of 10 November 1492 which established that civil and church authorities should be witnesses to baptism and, in the case that they were baptized before arrival, proof and witnesses of baptism were required. Furthermore, all property could be recovered by returnees at the same price at which it was sold. Similarly the Provision of the Royal Council of 24 October 1493 set harsh sanctions for those who slandered these New Christians with insulting terms such as tornadizos.

Modern Spanish policy

The Spanish government has actively pursued a policy of reconciliation with the descendants of its expelled Jews. In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted the possibility of obtaining Spanish citizenship to a part of the Sephardic Jewish diaspora.

From November 2012 Sephardi Jews have had the right to automatic Spanish nationality without the requirement of residence in Spain. Prior to November 2012, Sephardi Jews already had the right to obtain Spanish citizenship after a reduced residency period of two years (versus ten years for foreigners but similar to nationals from Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil and about 20 other American republics that also require 2 years.) While their citizenship is being processed, Sephardi Jews are entitled to the consular protection of the Kingdom of Spain. This makes Spain unique among European nations as the only nation that currently grants automatic citizenship to the descendants of Jews expelled during the European medieval evictions. Although these measures are popular in the Jewish community, they have also sparked some controversy. A minority of thinkers hold that these policies represent less the abnegation of prejudice as a shift to Philo-Semitism. In 2013, the number of Jews in Spain was estimated to range between 40,000 and 50,000 people. Goldschläger and Orjuela have explored motivations to request citizenship and the ways in which legal provisions, religious associations, and the migration industry become gatekeepers of and (re)shape what it means to be Sephardic.

See also

  • Edict of Expulsion
  • Edict of Fontainebleau
  • Expulsion of Jews from Spain
  • Expulsions of the Jews from France
  • Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain, a series of similar decrees affecting Muslims
  • Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily
  • Expulsion of the Moriscos
  • Expulsions of Protestants from Salzburg

References

  • The Edict of Expulsion of the Jews – English translation of the decree (from Castilian) by Edward Peters (b. 1936)
  • Alhambra Decree: 521 Years Later, a blog post on the Law Library of Congress's In Custodia Legis.