Iisolation and expulsion
The lack of popular, violent antisemitism in Galicia and the absence of a Church that preached it made it difficult to enforce the discriminatory laws of the unified Crown of Castile and Aragon that preceded the expulsion of 1492.
Ethnologic Museum
The reaction in Galicia
In 1480, the Cortes of Toledo decreed the segregation of Jews into separate neighborhoods. In 1481, the Tribunal of the Inquisition, established in 1478, ordered the burning of 2,000 Jews in Seville. Meanwhile, in Galicia, the local councils continued their policy of tolerance, sometimes even favoring the Jewish community.
What was the reaction in Galicia, the land of “two cultures,” to the decree of expulsion issued on March 31, 1492? We believe that most converted, with many of them continuing to practice Judaism in secret with the coexistence and tolerance of their Christian neighbors, remaining undisturbed for nearly a century.
Others chose the path of exile, such as Isaac, a silversmith from A Coruña, who in 1493, with the complicity of shipowners and royal officials, fled by sea, taking with him gold and silver coins, jewels, and “other valuable items.” Among these could well have been the Kennicott Bible, created in A Coruña in 1476 by a wealthy Jew also named Isaac. He left with the Bible into exile, marking the loss of one of Galicia’s medieval treasures.
