Juan Marcos Bejarano Gutierrez

The Jews of Iberia Juan Marcos Bejarano Gutierrez

The history of Jews in Spain and Portugal spans more than thousand years. By most measures, it is even longer than the large-scale settlement of Jews in the land of Israel which was interrupted several times in Jewish history. Legends ascribe the arrival of the earliest settlers to the days of the biblical prophet Obadiah, but archeologically speaking, the first record of Jews is much later. This book includes an overview of Jewish life in the Iberian Peninsula from its early days through the Expulsion. It includes a special focus on the rise of the Conversos, Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity.