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Bragança is a medieval hilltop town in northern Portugal, 22 kilometres from Spain. Although there seems to be no record of a Jewish presence in Bragança in the 12th century, the royal privileges of 1187 mention the penalties for attacking a Jew on arrival. In exchange for this royal protection, the community had to pay high taxes. During the reign of Alfonso IV (1325-1357), the city’s ...
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Haguenau is one of the oldest Jewish communities in Alsace. The Jews lived there almost without interruption since the Middle Ages, probably in the 12th century, and enjoyed the same freedoms as the other inhabitants, except for a few episodes, mainly of a more national scope, affecting all regions. The Jewish population increased from 34 families in 1735 to 64 in 178. The first synagogue was ...
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Historians believe – although the exact dates are still lacking – that there was a Jewish quarter in the small town of Manduria between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is likely that, the Jewish community of Naples found refuge there after its expulsion from the kingdom. The giudecca was not separated from the rest of the city by walls, until the expulsion of 1510. At ...
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Lecce had one of the most prominent Jewish settlements in the Neapolitan kingdom before the expulsion of the Jews. Though there is no evidence of a Jewish presence prior to the 15th century, there are traces its existence Lecce at the time of the Normans (G. T. Tanzi, “Gli Statuti della Città di Lecce,” p. 19, Lecce, 1898). Their occupations were mostly textile dyeing (silk and wool), ...
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There is proof of a Jewish community in the Middle Ages in Sicily, particularly in the towns of Palermo, Messina, Taormina and Syracuse. This prosperous community was mainly in activities of commerce until their expulsion in 1492 by Ferdinand II. Only in 1989 will be unveiled one of the most beautiful treasure of the Jewish European heritage: Syracuse’s mikvah, this oldest known ritual ...
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The communities of the southern peninsula were the wealthiest and best integrated in all of Italy during the Middle Ages. This was particularly true of Sicily, where more than 37000 Jews lived, including a large number in Palermo. This is as many as are living in all of Italy today. The world of the Jews living under the Spanish crown was swept away within a few years after the forced ...
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Documents attest to a Jewish presence in Pesaro dating back to 1214. The expulsion of the Jews from the papal states in 1569 led numerous Jewish families to Pesaro, which became the most important center of Jewish life in the Duchy of Urbino. The annexation of the Duchy by the Pope radically changed the Jews’ situation. Three years later, in 1634, 500 Jews were forced to move into a ...
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The presence of Jews in The Marches dates from as early as the twelfth century. The community developed especially after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, Sicily, and the Kingdom of Naples. There are still remains of Jewish streets and synagogues in a number of small towns in this region bordering the Adriatic coast. This area of off the beaten tourist path and very picturesque. The Jews were ...
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The old Jewish community of Pisa grew with the arrival of Jews from Spain at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but, with the development of Livorno, steadily decreased in numbers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The current synagogue, constructed in 1756, has been remodeled several times, most notably at the end of the nineteenth century.
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The Jews who lived within the walls of the little hilltop town of Castelo de Vide were engaged in the traditional activities of commerce, crafts, and sometimes medicine. The population grew after 1492 with the arrival of Jews from Spain. The former Judaria is fairly easy to identify around the (Praço de Comércio). Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries the characteristic little ...
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The community of Trujillo is first mentioned in 1290. Just before the expulsion it had 150 members. All of them went to Portugal. Not long ago, construction in the back of a pharmacy brought to light the site of an old synagogue. An inscription from Psalms (118-20) reads: “This door is the door of the Lord: the Just will enter through here”. The adjoining house has two vaulted ...
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On the day of tishah b’ab -the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem- the old synagogue resounds to these words in Spanish: “Hemos perdido Sion pero tambien hemos perdido. España tierra de consolacion” (We have lost Zion, but we have also lost Spain, land of consolation”). was built in 1837, but its Holy Ark, kept from the earlier place of ...
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In medieval times there was an intense intellectual life around the synagogue’s Talmudic school in what was called “Le Clos aux Juifs” (the Jews’ Enclosure). Contrary to what its name suggests, the enclosure in question was never a closed space. There were Jews living elsewhere in the town and Christians living in the Clos. All this disappeared in 1306, when the ...
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In 1182, King Philippe Auguste decided to expel the Jews from the capital. Synagogues were converted into churches and building owned by Jews were sold, with the proceeds going to the Crown. The sovereign used the sums thus amassed to build the keep of the castle at Vincennes and to put a wall around the nearby woods. Within Paris itself he built a market in the now deserted Champeaux quarter ...
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