The history of the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

dates back more than 650 years. There have been periods of persecution, but for the most part the Jews of Gibraltar have prospered and been one of the largest religious minorities in the city, where they have made contributions to the

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, defence, and

Government of Gibraltar His Majesty's Government of Gibraltar is the democratically elected government of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The head of state is King Charles III who is represented by the Governor. Elections in Gibraltar are held every four ...

. Significantly, the Jews of Gibraltar have faced almost no official

anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

during their time in the city. During Gibraltar's tercentenary celebration,

Jonathan Sacks Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks ( he, יונתן הנרי זקס, translit=Yona'tan Henry Zaks; 8 March 19487 November 2020) was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and author. Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the United ...

, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Commonwealth, was quoted as saying, "In the dark times of expulsion and inquisition, Gibraltar lit the beacon of tolerance," and that Gibraltar "is probably the community where Jews have been the most integrated''.''"

History

Early history to 1492

The first record of Jews in Gibraltar comes from the year 1356, under Muslim rule, when the community issued an appeal asking for the ransom of a group of Jews taken captive by barbary pirates. In 1474, twelve years after the Christian takeover, the

Duke of Medina Sidonia Duke of Medina Sidonia ( es, Duque de Medina Sidonia) is a peerage grandee title of Spain in Medina-Sidonia, holding the oldest extant dukedom in the kingdom, first awarded by King John II of Castile in 1380.conversos'' from Cordova and

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

led by Pedro de Herrera in exchange for maintaining the garrison of the town for two years, after which time the 4,350 Jews were expelled by the Duke. Their fate is unknown. It is likely that many returned to Cordova where they had to face the persecution of the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

under the infamous Torquemada from 1488. Jews were expelled from Spain under the Alhambra decree of 1492 and from

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

by order of King

Manuel I Manuel I may refer to: * Manuel I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (1143–1180) *Manuel I of Trebizond, Emperor of Trebizond (1228–1263) *Manuel I of Portugal Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate ( pt, O Venturoso), wa ...

in 1497, effectively ending all Jewish activity there, except in the cases of ''conversos'' or possible

Crypto-Jews Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden'). The term is especially applied historically to Sp ...

British rule

After the

Treaty of Utrecht The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne ...

in 1713, Gibraltar came under the rule of the

Kingdom of Great Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of ...

, which made the area a British dependency. In the Treaty, the Spanish added the following clause barring Jews and

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

from the city: However, the British ignored this provision. Although the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290,

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

had consented to their readmission in 1655. The admission of Jews was one of the infractions against the Treaty of Utrecht that the Spanish used (others were the admission of

, the extension of fortifications and the alleged smuggling from Gibraltar) to consider that the British had abrogated the Treaty. In 1727, the Spanish unsuccessfully laid siege to the city. In 1729, the British and the Sultan of Morocco reached an agreement whereby the sultan's Jewish subjects were legally permitted to reside in the colony. Jews were given the right to permanent settlement in 1749, when Isaac Nieto, the new community's first Rabbi, came to the colony from London and established congregation Sha'ar HaShamayim, the oldest synagogue in Gibraltar, otherwise known as the Great Synagogue. At that date there were already 600 Jews in Gibraltar, who constituted one third of the civilian population. Three more synagogues, all of which still function on Shabbat and feast days, were built as years went by: Nefutsot Yehuda and Ets Hayim in 1781, as well as the Abudarham Synagogue in 1820, named after

Solomon Abudarham Solomon Abudarham (died 1804) was Chief Rabbi of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar until his death from yellow fever in December 1804. Also known as Shelomo Abudarham II, the rabbi established a school of religious study on Parliament ...

. The Jewish population continued to grow, reaching its peak in the mid-19th century. The Jews of Gibraltar initially preserved some old customs. For example, in 1777, Issac Aboab, a

Gibraltarian The Gibraltarians (Spanish: ''gibraltareños'', colloquially: '' llanitos'') are an ethnic group native to Gibraltar, a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterran ...

Jew born in Tetuan, was listed as having two wives, Hannah Aboab and Simah Aboab.

Bigamy In cultures where monogamy is mandated, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. A legal or de facto separation of the couple does not alter their marital status as married persons. I ...

was illegal in the Kingdom of Great Britain at the time, but the law was apparently not fully operative in Gibraltar, and though polygamy had been banned by Gershom ben Judah, Rabbenu Gershom Meor Hagola since approximately 1000 CE, this ban was only accepted by Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi communities.

Twentieth century and today

Tito Benady, a historian on Gibraltar Jewry, noted that when some 200 Jews of the 2000 evacuees from

were evacuated as non combatants to Funchal, Madeira, at the start of World War II, they found a Jewish cemetery (Jewish Cemetery of Funchal) that belonged to the Abudarham family. The same family after whom the Abudarham Synagogue in Gibraltar was named. On the 28 May 1944 the first repatriation party departed Madeira for Gibraltar and by the end of 1944 only 520 non-priority evacuees remained on the island.Garcia, pp. 20 In 2008, a monument was made in Gibraltar and shipped to Madeira, where it has been erected next to a small chapel at Santa Caterina park, Funchal. The monument is a gift and symbol of ever-lasting thanks given by the people of Gibraltar to the island of Madeira and its inhabitants. The city of Funchal and Gibraltar were twinned on 13 May 2009 by their then Mayors, the Mayor of Funchal Miguel Albuquerque and the Mayor of Gibraltar who had been an Evacuee from Gibraltar to Madeira Solomon Levy, respectively. The Mayor of Gibraltar then had a meeting with the then President of Madeira Alberto João Jardim. Most of Gibraltar's Jews were evacuated to the United Kingdom during the Second World War, when the Allies of World War II, Allies used Gibraltar as a base of operations. Some Jews opted to stay in the United Kingdom, but most returned, although there was a slackening in some of their religious practices. The efforts of the Spanish sephardic Italian born Rabbi Josef Pacifici, who assumed the Gibraltar rabbinate and took control of Jewish education in Gibraltar, helped reverse this tendency. In 1984 Rabbi Ron Hassid became Chief Rabbi. Several Gibraltarian Jews have served in important positions in the Government there in the 20th century, particularly Sir Joshua Hassan, who served as Chief Minister of Gibraltar for two separate terms. Solomon Levy served in the ceremonial role of Mayor of Gibraltar from 2008 to 2009. The city maintains five kosher institutions, a Jewish primary school and two Jewish secondary schools. In 2004, at a Gibraltar#Tercentenary, celebration of the 300 years since the British takeover, the congregants at the Great Synagogue (Shaar Hashamayim) performed the anthem "God Save the Queen" in Hebrew, the first time that has occurred officially.

Historical demographics

In 1753, when the first census was taken, the Jewish population of Gibraltar was 575 out of about 1,800 civilian inhabitants. The count had risen to 863 by 1777. In 1787 the population had fallen to 776. By 1830 the civilian population was evaluated to 1,900, of which 1,300 were "native" Jews and 600 recent Jewish immigrants, and by 1878 the community counted 1,533 members. In 2001, there were 584 Jews (roughly 2% of the total population), of whom 464 were self-described

, 63 were "Other British", 4 were Moroccan and 18 Spanish. Five Jews came from other European Union countries, and 39 did not hail from Gibraltar, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Spain, or any other countries in the European Union. Presently a large percentage of Gibraltar's Jews are Sephardic, but there are a number of British Jews as well.

Language

Languages spoken in the Jewish community include English language, English, Spanish language, Spanish, Ladino language, Ladino (spoken by the large Sephardic population) and Judeo-Moroccan Arabic, Arabic (traditionally spoken by some of the population which traces its origins back to Morocco). Llanito, the vernacular language for the majority of Gibraltarians, has significant Jewish influence. Some 500 words are of Hebrew origin, and the language also has features of influence from Haketia, a Judeo-Spanish language spoken by the Sephardic communities of Northern Morocco and the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

References

External links

Gibraltar Jewish Community
*

Jewish EncyclopediaJewish Europe – GibraltarThe Jewish Community of Gibraltar
The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot
Gibraltar 2001 CensusLlanito
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of The Jews In Gibraltar Jewish Gibraltarian history,