Preserving Sephardic Judaism One Story at a Time
Discover history, stories, and traditions of our community
Sephardic Jewish History
- Sephardic Jews are jews who are from the Iberian Peninsula, from as early as the Roman Period
- Faced persecution under the Visigothic kingdom, Pagans and Almohads
- Communities flourished under Muslim Umayyad rule until the 15th century
- The Reconquista was a process in which Christian kingdoms in Spain reconquered land from Muslim rulers
- Sephardic Jews faced persecution and were forced to convert
- In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered all Jews in Spain to convert to Christianity or flee
- King Manuel 1 of Portugal issued a similar decree
- Sephardic Jews dispersed widely from s to Istanbul, Salonica, Izmir, North Africa, and throughout Europe
- The traditional language of Sephardic Jews, Ladino, 14th-century Spanish
- The largest population of Sephardic Jews lives in Israel today