49. Early Jewish Settlement in Spain (Jewish History Lab)

Brief discussion of some aspects of the early settlement of Jews in the Iberian peninsula.
Recommended Reading:
Salo Baron, _A Social and Religious History of the Jews_, v. III
Solomon Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul
Interested in studying more deeply with our Membership perks?
Join our learning community of students, researchers and colleagues: / @henryabramsonphd

[@breathefirst1962]

This is so interesting. I am an Iberian Jew. I have a mixture of Celtic Spanish African and Jewish markers in my heritage.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Glad you find it interesting!

[@devintaylor8702]

Awesome 👍😊

[@luiscecilio8807]

Always fantastic...thanks Prof.

[@lindseyadams2841]

Shalom alecheim 😊 Dr. Abramson. Thank you! I always appreciate your history lectures. Also, thanks for the reading recommendations!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

My pleasure!

[@MitzvosGolem1]

Excellent thanks

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

You are welcome

[@agusmonasteriobaldor]

Thank you for this outstanding lecture

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

You are very welcome

[@cuidatrava1]

Would you be able to give a lecture on the sources of Jewish migration to Iberia in later periods - particularly during the Islamic period? That would be fascinating!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Part of the plan.

[@cuidatrava1]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD Wonderful!

[@danielpalmer643]

I've often heard that the place called Tarshish may have been the Iberian peninsula or a part of it.

[@georgerodriguez4207]

Awesome

[@honeybeechanger]

Oh my goodness I really really love all your videos you are amazing. I just have to say that I think when we talk about our own history sometimes we put a like a blurry spot on other people like when we talk about the Holocaust A lot of times we will exclude the other people that were murdered and then people look badly upon us for that and it also skews the story to be so exclusively Jewish as far as the victimhood is concerned and the same thing happens with the Inquisition and the expulsion the Spanish explosion of the Jews was also the Spanish explosion of the muscles and it was brought upon by the loss of the foothold that the Muslims had in southern hiberia. I think that's a very good point to make and I shouldn't be kind of skipped over hopefully you bring it up later I'm only in the beginning of this video

[@jonl3696]

Thanks for this! It's good to learn more about where my grandmother's Jewish ancestors came from. My grandmother was 'Catholic' but taught me to say Kaddish which I have memorized to this day.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Fascinating!

[@jonl3696]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD indeed. She taught us a few prayers in what we thought was a strange language, and always lit two candles every Friday night till the week she died in the late 80s. We thought she and her family belonged to some kind of a secret spiritual society (which was common in the Philippines) until we realized long after she passed that the prayers she taught us are all in Hebrew!

[@savtamarlene]

@@jonl3696 Your story is so similar to so many others i have read.

[@yoyoyoyoyoyoy9]

Would it be possible to give lectures, about the history of Ashkenazi Jews

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Please poke around the website, you will find many.

[@king_cobra5492]

Jews are always welcomed in my world. I'm Spanish descendant, via Central America and the US.

[@assadnite8429]

The works of Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed is my favorite works from this era.

[@roseofportugal1825]

Uau, great that you address this issue! Spain - anachronistic or simply taken as a geographic term. There was no united Spain at the time. 1143 the Kingdom of Portugal is established 🇵🇹

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Correct, of course.

[@lsdlrf]

Dr Henry, someone told me that members of “the house of David” ended up in what we call Spain today. Is there historical evidence for that statement?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Not that I am aware.

[@parenthope3]

I am an evangelical Christian...love your channel

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thanks!

[@barrysmith5830]

Amazing....

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thanks for watching

[@zafirjoe18]

as a person can sleep here, in this location, and see a dream that takes place in a place as distant as Spain [beAspamya]. (Nidda 30b) שהרי אדם ישן כאן ורואה חלום באספמיא

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Interesting

[@aminaz1778]

Maimonides refers to Spain as Sfarad

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Interesting

[@aminaz1778]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD thank you

[@yahweh621]

How interesting to know or think that Spain (Hispanic)have Jew Arab bloodlines..I am from Jalisco ..from catholic cristian family ..

[@georgerodriguez4207]

Juda word is considered as police or the law. In Spanish culture

[@markwayne8743]

Actually no, police are called "la jura", which may sound like Juda if you aren't familiar with the language.

[@bigthurl5613]

Weren’t the Jews in Spain and Portugal referred to as the Yahya Negos? Y

[@Drbaruchmaimon]

No!

[@bigthurl5613]

@@Drbaruchmaimon Lies

[@Drbaruchmaimon]

@@bigthurl5613 You are wrong historically. Period!

[@bigthurl5613]

@@Drbaruchmaimon If you say so......The Jews in Spain and Portugal were referred to as the "Yahya Negros"....Yaish Ibn Yahya. Start there and let the history speak.

[@Drbaruchmaimon]

@@bigthurl5613 Semantic distortion of facts and language will not help you. Morover, we understand the implication you are terribly attempting to make and will not convince the learned. The historically reality no Sephardim were called by your distored and baseless claims. None, zero!

[@yourthought2333]

10:18 nice!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Ty

[@yahweh621]

doubt

[@zafirjoe18]

חוּץ מִן הַמָּלִיחַ יָשָׁן וְקוֹלְיָיס הָאִיסְפָּנִין, שֶׁהַדָּחָתָן זוֹ הִיא גְּמַר מְלַאכְתָּן. . with the exception of old salted fish or the colias of the Spaniards [kolyas ha’ispanin] fish, for which rinsing with hot water itself is completion of the prohibited labor of cooking. ( Shabbat 39a) אכריז רבי אבהו בקיסרי קירבי דגים ועוברן ניקחין מכל אדם חזקתן אינן באים אלא מפלוסא ואספמיא Rabbi Abbahu announced in Caesarea: Fish entrails and their eggs may be purchased from any person, as the presumption with regard to them is that they come only from Pelusium [Pilusa] and Spain [Aspamya] (Avodah Zarah 39)

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Ty

[@devintaylor8702]

SHALOM ISRAEL 😇 I ENJOY THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL ❤️ OUR ANCIENT ANCESTORS GREAT LEARNING BARUCH HASHEM!!!

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Enjoy in good health!

[@pablo-oq8is]

My great great granfather was a sefardi jew they give him 2 option go to Latin América or leave spain and he came to Colombia .

[@sr2291]

What year was that?

[@rioverde123]

My 12th grandfather went to San antonio Texas from the Canary Islands. They were sephardic Jews.

[@DallasCowboysDiehard]

@@rioverde123 I recently found out that my dna has been found in archaeological remains in the Canary Islands.

[@joserincon8108]

Shalom abrachot Baruch Hashem !

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Same to you!

[@tychocollapse]

Imagine being defeated in a war, your capital destroyed, your most holy temple is destroyed... then you move most of your population to your enemy's heartland and throughout your enemy's borders within one generation, thereafter. Why does Judaism diaspora in this manner anyway? If Rome had a diaspora for each city it destroyed and people defeated, alot of diverse diasporas would equally be everywhere. Why don't we hear of a diaspora of a defeated Germanic tribe that resettled in the heart of Rome in the 1st century AD... or anywhere in Spain? And what's the deal in the manner of Jewish migration? Did inland Judaica suddenly manufacture an extensive seafaring culture? Seems a bit odd and expensive for recently displaced, disenfranchised refugees to take up the ways of Tyre. Surely an establishing of a port not under Roman control, would have been noticed (and evidenced). Odd further for any other defeated people of Rome to be given apparent free pass to mass migrate. Is this a Roman coordinated exile? If so, why the jews and not the Numidians, the spartans, the celicians, Cappadocians, the illyrians, the....?

[@markwayne8743]

They didn't need to become sea farers, there were existing ships in every port of the Mediterranean which enabled them to go wherever they wanted. You're welcome.

[@tychocollapse]

@@markwayne8743 You think the Roman Empire started a ferry service for any and all enemies of the state to use? That they would allow enemies of the state to freely roam within their borders in private ships? Why migrate toward your oppressors? The more likely explanation is that the traditional explanation is wrong and it's apparent you didn't think about the implications of my posting.

[@gratefuldead3750]

The word diaspora is a greek word

[@miamianz]

I had a DNA test with 7% Jewish Diaspora, I know my great grand parents lived in eastern Pyrenese. sadly no records are kept because they were always migrating or at war. even after coming to the USA. I assume alot converted and changed their last names to conform just to survive, so much lost history. I am sure most records where destroyed by Spain to incure this outcome in the long run.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Have a look at www.jewishgen.org.

[@miamianz]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD thank just ran across a book by Pere Bonnin.

[@mago9450]

Spain as a 'natural' destination for Hebrews in Antiquity can probably not be dissociated from Phoenicia and Carthage. Just to make the linguistic link from Obadiah and Jonah, Tarshish as a location still exists as a village in Mount Lebanon today. Even today in the Lebanese vernacular "Are you going to Tarshish?" means: "Are you going to the end of earth?" And of course, the province of Huelva, Spain is the main contender for being the Tarshish of old times. Furthermore, one possible origins for the word 'Spain' is i-Shapan which means in Phoenician "The Island of the North". And i-Shapan/ Sepharad is not so far. It is therefore not unthinkable the Hebrews borrowed the Phoenician maritime routes from Tyre to Tarshish via Carthage and settled in the many dynamic cities there (Cadiz/ Gidar (fortified walls), Malaga/ Malaka (queen), Sevilla/ Is-Baal (the island of Baal) etc. That would lead us to a much more ancient settlement history. A theory that deserves further consideration. Also, what happened to the non-Jewish Semitic/ Phoenician populations of Spain after the defeat of Carthage and the full occupation of Spain by Roman armies is a matter of fascinating questions: did they adopt the gods of the conquering enemy? Or did they find it better to adopt a religion that was tolerated by the Romans and closer to their ancestral beliefs? Would a possible mass conversion of already well-settled Phoenicians explain the remarkably unique rooting in quality and quantity of the Jewish folks in Spain?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Useful observations.

[@mago9450]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD I was sure you would appreciate 🙂

[@zafirjoe18]

I think that Malaga is from the Arabic Malacha , Which means salting ( also in Hebrew )There the fish where salted for preservation for further transport inland.

[@mago9450]

@@zafirjoe18 Unlikely. Most scholars trace the name to the very foundation of Malaga around 770 BCE by the Phoenicians settlers as MLK (triliteral consonant root for the word King/ Queen in the Phoenician language). The Arab invasion of Spain by Tareq Ibn Ziyad came in 711 CE, so 1,481 years later...

[@zafirjoe18]

Mago The name Malaka is probably derived from the Phoenician word for salt because fish was salted on the first dock; in other Semitic languages the word for salt is still Hebrew מלח mélaḥ or Arabic ملح milḥ.

[@user-bj9or7ke3u]

Isnt ther word Askanazi an Iranian name for Eshkanazi or worhispers of Ashk or Eshk? That means love in Farsi and the Ashkanazis were Mithraists, you guys probably took that name from the scythians at the time who were mithraists

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Ashkenaz appears in Genesis 10, considerably predating this period. More likely us guys had the word first.

[@jesusislord899]

​​@@HenryAbramsonPhD Yes as descendants of JAPHET Noah's son, descendants of Gomer Noah's grandson, Father of the GENTILE NATIONS... Not Hebrew Israelites... Which means your GENTILES 100% Please admit this truth as well!

[@tagbarzeev8283]

@@jesusislord899 The term Ashkenaz was used by the Jews of the early middle ages as a name for they land where they lived. Ashkenaz Jews are just one of many Diaspora groups of Jews ✡️

[@bigthurl5613]

@@tagbarzeev8283 Ashkenaz was the son of Gomer and Land in the area of Modern day Germany. I.E. How the “Jews” in Germany got their name. This is a historical fact.

[@tagbarzeev8283]

@Big Thurl many Diaspora groups of Jews are named for the land they lived and here are some examples Mizrahi or eastern Jews of Arab lands Italkim Jews of Italy, Yemenite Jews for Yemen, Kaifeng Jews for Kaifeng China and EthiopianJews for Ethiopia. These Diaspora groups are named for the land they lived in.

[@gerardovillarreal4640]

Viva Mexico ,Sephardic Jew

[@yahweh621]

I HIGHLY the Jew bloodlines were they were cristian at all

[@AndresLeonRangel]

I bless every single Jew reading this. I love you in Jesus name. I bless you

[@76olimpo]

🇮🇱

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

ty

[@malekdavid132]

I learned the other day i have sephradic ancestry my great grand daddy His David Samuda the merchant of leman street in the Uk he his from portugal he his the Son of Antonio de Samuda