Expulsion of Jews from Spain
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The expulsion of the Jews from Spain was ordered in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs ruling Castile and Aragon through the Edict of Granada with the purpose, according to the decree, of preventing them from influencing "New Christians", Jews and their descendants who had under duress converted to Christianity.
The decision to expel the Jews—or to prohibit the practice of Judaism —followed the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in the Crowns of Castile and Aragon to weed out the conversos who continued practising their old faith. Historian Julio Valdeón wrote, "undoubtedly the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian site is one of the most controversial issues of all that have happened throughout the history of Spain". French hispanist Joseph Pérez highlighted the similarities that exist between this expulsion and the persecution of the Jews in Hispania visigoda almost a thousand years earlier.
In 2015 the Spanish Parliament passed a law recognizing as Spanish those presumed to be descendants of the Jews expelled in 1492, thereby annulling the consequences of that expulsion.
