Editing Alhambra Decree (section)

{{Short description|1492 decree expelling Jews from Spain}}
[[File:Spanishhaggadah.jpg|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 language|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 Jews from Spain|expulsion of practising Jews]] from the Crowns of [[Crown of Castile|Castile]] and [[Crown of Aragon|Aragon]] and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.<ref name="Decree-translation">{{Cite web|url=http://www.sephardicstudies.org/decree.html|title=The Edict of Expulsion of the Jews – 1492 Spain|website=www.sephardicstudies.org|access-date=27 June 2017}}</ref> Its primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish ''[[converso]]'' [[New Christian]] population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism.<ref name="Szlajfer 2023">{{cite book |author-last=Szlajfer |author-first=Henryk |year=2023 |chapter=Chapter 1: Terminology as Differentiation |title=Jews and New Christians in the Making of the Atlantic World in the 16th–17th Centuries: A Survey |location=[[Leiden]] and [[Boston]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Studies in Critical Social Sciences |volume=269 |pages=1–21 |doi=10.1163/9789004686441_002 |isbn=978-90-04-68644-1 |issn=1573-4234 |lccn=2023043705 |s2cid=259313511}}</ref> Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the [[Massacre of 1391|religious persecution and pogroms]] which occurred in 1391.<ref>{{cite book| last1 = Pérez| first1 = Joseph | title =Breve Historia de la Inquisición en España | year =2012 |orig-year= 2009 | publisher = Crítica | location = Barcelona | isbn = 978-84-08-00695-4 |language=es|page=17}}</ref> Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience|last=Gerber|first=Jane|publisher=The Free Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0029115749|location=New York|pages=1–144}}</ref> 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 [[Roman 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 Roman Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GKYlN1ySFOYC|title=History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain|last=Pérez|first=Joseph|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2007|isbn=9780252031410|language=en|translator-last=Hochroth|translator-first=Lysa|author-link=Joseph Pérez}}</ref><sup>:17</sup>

In 1924, the regime of [[Miguel Primo de Rivera|Primo de Rivera]] granted Spanish citizenship to a part of the [[Sephardic Jews|Sephardic Jewish]] [[Jewish diaspora|diaspora]], though few people benefited from it in practice.<ref name=PdR>[https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4049868.pdf Celia Prados García: La expulsión de los judíos y el retorno de los sefardíes como nacionales españoles. Un análisis histórico-jurídico] (in Spanish)</ref> The decree was then formally and symbolically revoked on 16 December 1968 by the regime of [[Francoist Spain|Francisco Franco]],<ref name=":2">[https://www.nytimes.com/1968/12/17/archives/1492-ban-on-jews-is-voided-by-spain-1492-ban-on-jews-is-voided-in.html "1492 Ban on Jews Is Voided by Spain"], ''The New York Times'', 17 December 1968</ref> 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".<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/sephardic-jews-eager-to-apply-for-spanish-citizenship/2014/02/17/e56978dc-9810-11e3-ae45-458927ccedb6_story.html "Sephardic Jews eager to apply for Spanish citizenship"], ''Washington Post'', 17 February 2014</ref> 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".<ref>[https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21596963-offer-right-past-wrong-may-not-lead-huge-influx-people-1492-and-all "1492 and all that"], ''The Economist'', 22 February 2014</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/opinion/repatriating-spains-jews.html|title=Repatriating Spain's Jews|last=Stavans|first=Ilan|date=1 April 2014|work=The New York Times|access-date=27 June 2017|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The Spanish law<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.boe.es/eli/es/l/2015/06/24/12|title=BOE-A-2015-7045 Ley 12/2015, de 24 de junio, en materia de concesión de la nacionalidad española a los sefardíes originarios de España.|pages=52557–52564}}</ref> 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]].