Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily

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The Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily began in 1493 when the Spanish Inquisition reached the island of Sicily and its Jewish population of 30,000 Jews.

1 History of the Jews of Sicily and the Spanish Inquisition
- 1.1 History of the Sicilian Jews
- 1.2 History of the Spanish Inquisition and Jewish Expulsion
2 References
3 External links

[edit] History of the Jews of Sicily and the Spanish Inquisition

[edit] History of the Sicilian Jews

At the time of Expulsion, there had been Jewish activity in Sicily for some 1555 years, dating back to early Roman times, and they were relatively untroubled on the island until the acceptance of the crown of Aragon in Sicily in 1412. A great number of Jews had reached Sicily after Pompey's 63 BC sacking of Jerusalem, and additionally by Roman Proconsul Crassus, who is traditionally said to have sold more than 30,000 Jewish slaves on the island.

After the enslavement under Roman rule, Jews in Sicily eventually assimilated into society, working in professions as wide-ranged as philosophy, medicine, artisentry, and farming.

The exact number of Jews in Sicily at the time of expulsion is not certain, but in 1492, it is known the Jewish populations of Palermo, Messina and several other cities were considerable, and that there were Giudeccas, or Jewish settlements, in over 50 places in Sicily, ranging in anywhere population from 350 to 5000. At their height, Jewish Sicilians probably constituted from five to eight percent of the island's population.[1]

[edit] History of the Spanish Inquisition and Jewish Expulsion

The maximum extent of the Crown of Aragon, including Sicily.

Muslim Moors had ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula since the first invasion in 711. By the late Middle Ages, Christian kings had begun to wage war on the Moors and recapture some of the peninsula. After the marriage of King Ferdinand of Aragon to Queen Isabella of Castille, the Moors were finally forced out of Granada in 1492, completing the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula.

Jewish life had flourished in Spain, and Muslims, Christians, and Jews had coexisted peacefully throughout Al-Andalus (see Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula).

In 1492, as part of an attempt to maintain Catholic orthodoxy and purify their kingdom of Moorish influence, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the forced expulsion or conversion of all Jews on pain of death. The date of the expulsion was extended from September 18, 1492 to January 12, 1493, in order to allow the extortion of oportunist tax levies.

Witnesses recounted the sight of the Jews of Palermo waving from the departing ships at their former neighbours as they were borne away.^{[citation needed]}

The unique liturgy of the Jews of Sicily remains amongst certain communities,^{[citation needed]} but the Jews have never returned en masse to Sicily. However, in 2005, for the first time since the Expulsion, a Passover seder was conducted in Sicily (in Palermo), held by the Milanese progessive Rabbi Barbara Aiello.