"Jews as a people have been subjected to antisemitism, bigotry, and genocide since time immemorial. One of these instances is a seemingly long forgotten, long overlooked period of history: the days of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions that began in the 12th century and lasted for hundreds of years, culminating in the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian peninsula.

The Inquisition was the Catholic Church’s reign of terror in Europe as well as wherever their empires touched the known world. It was a period lasting nearly 600 years and spanning several continents, claiming the lives of millions of innocent Jews, Muslims, Protestant Christians, Romani, Africans, and Indigenous Americans, as well as anyone who dared express views or opinions that differed from those of the Vatican.

On June 6, 1391, violent activities on the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain & Portugal) sanctioned by the Crown and Church led to the murder of 4,000 Jews in Seville, Spain. The Inquisition, with support from the Iberian monarchs, began to persecute the entire Jewish community—some that had been there since the Judean exile from Israel in the year 70. They instigated two pogroms that would eventually justify the expulsion in 1492, commencing one of the darker periods filled with turmoil for Jewish communities that had thrived in ways not seen since the times of King David.

The Islamic Moors, a general word for the people who resided in North Africa, including modern-day Morocco and Tunisia, had reigned over Al Andalus (the Arabic name for Spain) or Sefarad (the Hebrew name for Spain) for about eight centuries.

The Moors had established the Umayyad Caliphate, one of the successor empires of Mohammad, with Cordoba as its capital. Non-Muslims were tolerated and permitted to remain as dhimmis, or second-class citizens that were not forced to convert but were required to pay the jizya (non-believer) tax for “acceptance” and “protection.” Although there were some incidents of radical interruption, such as the infamous Almohad Caliphate—a 12th century Muslim Empire—from 1121 to 1269, this period is often referred to as Spain’s Golden Age. The era was highlighted as such since it was a beacon of co-existence where Muslims, Jews, and Christians all inhabited and prospered on the same land.

They produced innovations in theology, philosophy, medicine, and science during a time otherwise known as the “Dark Ages” for the rest of Europe. Names such as Rabeinu Moshe Ben Maimon (otherwise known as Maimonides, or the Rambam) and Rabeinu Moshe Ben Nachman (otherwise known as Nachmanides, or the Ramban) were two of many great minds that emerged during this time.

But the aggressive conquests of the radical Islamic Almohads only served to embolden radical Christian kingdoms to continue what they called “La Reconquista” (“The Re-Conquering”), with the vision of claiming all of Iberia for the Church.

By the late 14th century, the Office of the Inquisition already enjoyed a dominating presence all over Europe, instigating violent pogroms like the Seville Massacre of June 6, 1391.

In the 1380s, the Archdeacon of Écija, Ferrand Martinez, was a respected member of the Church working in Seville, a town with a significant Jewish population. In his preaching, he employed “political anti-Judaism,” which essentially uses the same tactics used by people in power to this day, where all of society’s ills are blamed on the Jews collectively. justifying eventual violence and murder. Jews pleaded with the Crown for additional protection, and after some years of empty promises and even a promotion of Father Martinez, in 1390 he called for the destruction of synagogues and for all Jewish material books to be sent to him. After both of these acts occurred, the Jews again pleaded with the Crown for protection. When they ordered Martinez to reduce his attacks, he stated that he only took orders from the church, refusing to stop the violent preaching or to rebuild the synagogues.

Ultimately, on this day, all-out violence in Seville erupted, and around 4,000 Jews were murdered, houses were destroyed, and women were violated. The aftermath saw a mass wave of religious conversions among the survivors in an attempt to live.

Over the following three months in over 70 cities and towns, the violence seen in Seville was repeated as Jews faced conversion or death. Homes were attacked and synagogues burned the ground, while the Crown’s authorities did nothing to stop or prevent the pillaging and violence against Jews.

An estimate says that around 50,000 innocent Jews were killed in the summer of 1391 in Castile. May the lives of those killed for being Jewish be remembered in blessing.

Later, at the marriage of Fernando of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, the kingdoms merged, including Navarra, into one, calling their newfound kingdom España (Spain). Encouraged by the Vatican, they began a protracted battle in the south against the last Islamic kingdom of old Andalus, Granada.

The Spaniards defeated the Moors in Granada in 1492 and subsequently demanded all non-Catholics, with a focus on the Jews, to immediately convert or leave Spain. They issued the Edict of Alhambra against the Jews in the spring of that year, which was set to be carried out on the Hebrew date of the 9th of Av (the day dedicated to mourning the destruction of both Jewish temples in Jerusalem), whether deliberately or by fate. By that year, Sefarad was home to over 300,000 Jews. Out of that population, over 100,000 chose to go into exile, with their descendants settling in lands throughout the old Ottoman Empire (particularly the Land of Israel), North Africa, Holland, Turkey, the Americas, and Persia.

Another estimated 200,000 Jews chose to remain, publicly converting to Catholicism but continuing to practice Judaism in secret. These “Conversos,” “New Christians,” or even the derogatory term ""marranos,"" meaning ""pigs,” as they were often called, continued to survive under the oppressive rule of the Church for generations.

With the discovery of lands across the Atlantic, many in Europe saw an abundance of opportunity, while Converso families saw the chance to escape and live a new life. Some found a new home on the African coastal islands of Canary and Cape Verde; others ventured into the unknown for the Americas, establishing whole communities in regions as far as Caribbean islands like Curaçao, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and all over Central and South America.

The Church was relentless, never far behind, chasing their victims to the ends of the earth in their religious fanaticism. Some of the Inquisition’s first victims in the Americas were Jews in Mexico, further south into modern Honduras, and even in South American countries like Perú. In fact, on this day in 1536, the claws of the Inquisition officially arrived in the colony of Mexico.

These were very intolerant times, and being Jewish in those days was considered to be dangerous, as is still sadly the case in some modern-day countries. Some of the first settlers in Mexico were Converso families, who in 1519 arrived with Hernan Cortes and the Conquistadors. The Converso Jews had a way of communicating their presence to other Jews in the world while remaining somewhat low-profile. For example, they even minted unique Spanish-Mexican coins featuring the Hebrew letter Aleph in place of the Spanish cross. However, the Conquistadors quickly became aware of their presence. Not even Hernando Alonzo, Cortes' personal shipwright, escaped, being put to death along with a number of troops who were suspected of being Jews.

The northern part of Mexico was given to the Crypto Jew Luis de Carvajal in 1579, and the Spanish took control of it thereafter.

This attempt at creating a crypto-Jewish state was known as the New Kingdom of Leon. It is thought that up to 75% of the population of Spanish settlers in Nuevo Leon were Crypto Jews attempting to escape the Inquisition.

Not even the Carvajal family could resist the wrath of the Church, as in the year 1596, Maria Nuñez de Carvajal was forced to bear witness to another “auto-de-fe” (“act of faith""), the public burning of her mother, brothers, and sisters, before she herself was burned at the stake for refusing to renounce her Jewish identity. Her story, now part of Mexican legend and heritage, was just one of many stories of victims of the Spanish Inquisition in the Americas.

“Autos-de-Fe” (“Acts of Faith”) were mass public executions where the Inquisitors would seek to “purge” their territories from heresy. Sadly, these were sadly common up until the mid-19th century, with the last autos-de-fe taking place in Mexico in the year 1850 and in the Canary Islands some years after that. It is said that more than 300,000 innocent lives were lost during the time of the Inquisition, with the number of survivors ranging in the millions. But experts agree that the true total number and the full magnitude of the Church’s devastating impact in those days may never be known, as many records, relics, and even sacred books are still kept under lock and key beneath the modern-day Vatican City.

Most descendants of the 100,000 exiled Sephardic Jews flourished all over the Middle East for hundreds of years before they were once again expelled from their lands after Israel’s independence in 1948. Today, most of them live in Israel, the US, France, and Canada. As for the descendants of the 200,000 Sephardic Jews who remained in Spain, it is said that they make up about 25% of the Hispanic population in the Americas today.

The Catholic Church and many Evangelical Christian movements have made long strides to mend and heal the deep wounds of the past, apologizing for the atrocities committed against Jews and other minorities for centuries. But there is still much to be discussed, many reparations to be made, and cultural properties to be returned to their rightful places. Teachers tend to brush over or completely ignore the Inquisition period. The cycle of political hostility towards Jews, which culminated in incitement, violence, and murder, continued long after the Inquisition ceased in the middle of the 19th century in other Christian and Muslim countries. This is the same vicious cycle that preceded the Holocaust. And the world “wonders” why a Jewish state is necessary.