Expulsion of the Jews from Spain

Haim Beinart is an emeritus professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has more than three hundred publications to his credit, almost all of them dealing with the history of the Jews in Spain in the Middle Ages and their subsequent expulsion. He was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1981 and has received many other prizes and honours for his scholarly work, including the Ruppin Prize (1966), the Isaac Ben-Zvi Award (1976), the Wiznitzer Prize for the best book published in Jewish History (1981), and the Tri-Cultural Prize of the University of Cordova (1981). In 1989 he became a Doctor Honoris Causa of the Complutense University of Madrid and in 1992 a Dr. Lit. of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York. He has held visiting professorships in Berne, London, Lucerne, and Princeton, and a visiting fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford.

• List of tables List of illustrations Abbreviations1 Introduction: Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain The Situation of Spanish Jewry Forced Segregation The Inquisition Financing the Reconquista Propaganda against Jews and Conversos The Fall of Granada2 The Edict of Expulsion Promulgation Analysis of the Structure Drafting The Views of the Catholics Monarchs Text and Translation of the Edict of Expulsion3 The Fate of Jewish Communal Property Land and Buildings Loans Synagogues, Houses of Study, and Ritual Baths Abattoirs and Baking Ovens Cemeteries4 Jewish–Christian Credit and its Liquidation The Kingdom of Castile: Attempts to Settle Accounts before Departure Public Debts to Jews Private Debts of Christians to Jews Collection of Christians’ Debts to Jews after the Expulsion Debts of Jews to Christians and the Payment of these Debts The Kingdom of Aragon5 Implementation of the Edict of Expulsion The Road to Implementation Organizing the Departure: The Role of the Genoese Implementation of the edict in the Kingdom of Aragon: Departure by Land; Departure by Sea Implementation of the Edict in the Kingdom of Castile: Conversion instead of Exile or Prison; Tribulations of Departure; Exploitation on the Border: Ciudad Rodrigo; The Passage from Castile into Portugal; Departure by Sea Implementation of the Edict in Sardinia and Sicily Navarre: Asylum and Expulsion The Number of Jews Expelled6 Smuggling7 Return and Conversion Return and Conversion among Jews of Castile Return and Conversion among Jews of Aragon8 The Senior Dynasty The Origins of the Family and its First Steps in Government The Case of Juan de Talavera Abraham Senior’s Public Service before Conversion Abraham Senior’s Property Abraham Senior as Tax-Farmer and Tax-Collector Abraham Senior as Chairman of the Hermandad Expulsion and Conversion Fernán Núñez Coronel's General Financial Activity Rabbi Meir Melamed and his Sons Solomon Senior, the Sons of Abraham Senior, and Other Family Members10 The House of Abravanel, 1483–149211 Contemporaries Describe the ExpulsionAppendix: Other Activities of Some Royal Officials Bibliography Index of People Index of Places General Index

Review for the Hebrew Edition of the book: ‘The importance of this new book lies in its methodical and detailed portrayal of the expulsion from Spain in 1492 in all its aspects—political, social, economic, legal, and also human. It presents wide-ranging descriptions of the problems and the dilemmas facing families and individuals in both large and small communities . . . and of how events actually unfolded, day by day and hour by hour. The thoroughness of the presentation, documented in every detail, is the product of decades of methodical and comprehensive historiographic research covering all the areas in which Jews lived in the entire period over which the expulsion took place . . . Beinart's historiographic reconstruction gives the contemporary reader a palpable understanding of what actually happened.’ Ben-Ami Feingold, Yediot Aharonot