Message #117164

[Bianca]

Prior to 1492, substantial Jewish populations existed in most Spanish provinces. Among the more prominent were in Toledo, Córdoba, and Granada. Smaller towns such as Ocaña, Guadalajara, Bentrago, and Almazan were founded or inhabited principally by Jews. Castile, Aranda, Ávila, Calahorra, Cuellar, Herrera, Medina, Segovia, Soria, and Villalon were home to large Jewish communities. Aragon and Catalonia had substantial Jewish communities in the famous Calls of Girona, Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca.

Following the 1492 expulsion from Spain, and the subsequent expulsions in Portugal (1497), these Jews, the nascent Sephardim, settled mainly in Morocco, the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey, Greece, Southwest Asia, North Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina), southern France, Italy, Spanish North America, (Southwest United States and Mexico), Spanish South America and the Philippines and Portuguese Brazil, as well as the Netherlands (whence a number of families continued on to the former Dutch possessions of Curaçao, Suriname and Aruba), England, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Hungary.

As a result of the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, many of the Sephardim from the Middle East relocated to either Israel or France, where they form a significant portion of the Jewish communities today. Other significant communities also exist in New York City, Argentina, and Montreal, Canada.