Expulsion of Jews from the territories of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1492
The Alhambra Decree of 1492 ended over a millennium of Jewish presence in Iberia and created the Sephardic diaspora across the Mediterranean world.
Key Facts
- Decree issued
- 31 March 1492 by Ferdinand II and Isabella I
- Deadline to leave or convert
- End of July 1492
- Estimated number expelled
- 40,000–200,000 (debated)
- Edict formally revoked
- 16 December 1968
- Spanish nationality law for descendants
- Passed 2015, deadline to apply October 1, 2019
- Language preserved by diaspora
- Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following the completion of the Reconquista and the fall of Granada in January 1492, the Catholic Monarchs sought religious unity. Fears that unconverted Jews were encouraging conversos to revert to Judaism, combined with growing purity-of-blood statutes and pressure from Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, drove the decision to expel all Jews who refused baptism.
On 31 March 1492, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile issued the Alhambra Decree, ordering all unconverted Jews to leave their kingdoms by the end of July 1492 or face death. Many chose conversion; estimates of those actually expelled range from 40,000 to 200,000. The decree ended more than a millennium of continuous Jewish settlement in the Iberian Peninsula.
Expelled Jews dispersed across Portugal, Navarre, the Maghreb, the Italian states, and the Ottoman Empire, forming an enduring Sephardic diaspora. The Spanish Inquisition continued prosecuting suspected crypto-Jews for centuries. The Alhambra Decree was not formally revoked until 1968, and in 2015 Spain offered nationality to qualifying descendants of those expelled.