Re: Happy Alhambra Decree Day

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 21:58:31 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

That's right, children. This is the anniversary of Ferdinand and
Isabella signing the Alhambra decree, expelling the Jews of Spain from
their separate kingdoms, Aragon and Castille. March 31, 1492. Columbus
would set sail for, uh, India a few months later. Quite a few members
of his crew were Jewish.

I didn't know that several of the crew were Jewish.

Most famously, the navigator on Columbus's ship. I'm spacing out on his
name.

. . .

100,000 expelled, 200,000 converted, after 50,000 had converted in the
decades after the massacre of 1391. Voluntary conversions, they were,
under penalty of death. Of course the Catholic monarchs didn't believe
them, hence the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects the Spanish
Inquisition.

Were the Jews really better treated under the previous Muslim rule than
Catholic rule?

Islam became a huge religion thanks to missionaries and forced
conversion. There's no question that they did it throughout their
history. But from what I've read, there were restrictions on Jews (and
I guess Christians) on the Iberian peninsula, typically about serving in
government. I don't think there were restrictions on business affairs. I've
never read that there were forced conversions on the Iberian peninsula
during several hundred years of Muslim rule.

Getting Catholic monarchs onto the throwns of the Spanish kingdoms was a
huge part of the Church's global domination strategy. Nor were they
going to tolerate citizens choosing religion for themselves. The overt
religious intolerance began in earnest around the end of the 14th
century and throughout the 15th century, leading up to the expulsion.

In the pre-Christian era, we tried to become the dominant religion,
hence the two Hellenic-style Temples and priests. This begat the people
who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, who objected to having a Temple-based
religion, and eventually led to Christianity. We shouldn't prosyletize.

. . .