Expulsion from Spain

On 31 March 1492, three months after the conquest of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella signed the Alhambra Decree. It ordered every Jew in Castile and Aragon to convert or leave by the end of July. The decree came after a century of pressure that began with the massacres and forced conversions of 1391 and continued with the Inquisition, founded in 1478 and led by Tomás de Torquemada. It argued that Jews were leading converts (conversos) back to Judaism. Jews could not take gold, silver or coins with them, and many sold their houses for almost nothing.

Historians estimate that between about 50,000 and 200,000 Jews left; many others accepted baptism. Many went first to Portugal, only to be trapped there in 1497. Others went to North Africa, Italy and above all the Ottoman Empire, where Sultan Bayezid II welcomed them and Salonica, Istanbul and Safed became great Sephardi centers. The last departures fell around the 9th of Av. Spain formally revoked the decree in 1968 and in 2015 offered citizenship to descendants of the exiles.