| The flag of Gibraltar. | |||
| Regions with significant populations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
|||
| Languages | |||
| Religion | |||
| Related ethnic groups | |||
| Gibraltar |
This article is part of the series: |
|
|
Other countries · Atlas |
There has been a Jewish presence in Gibraltar for 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, defence, and Government of Gibraltar.
Significantly, the Jews of Gibraltar have faced almost no official anti-Semitism during their time in the city (with the exception of the period of Spanish rule). During Gibraltar's tercentenary celebration, Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom 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."[1]
Contents |
The first record of Jews in Gibraltar comes from the year 1356, when the community issued an appeal asking for the ransom of a group of Jews taken captive by pirates. Another document indicates that a number of Jews fleeing Córdoba sought refuge in Gibraltar in 1473.
Jews were expelled from Spain under the Alhambra decree of 1492 and from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497, effectively ending all Jewish activity there, except in the cases of Conversos or possible Crypto-Jews.
After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Gibraltar came under the rule of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which made the area a British dependency. In the Treaty, the Spanish added the following clause barring Jews and Moroccans from the city:
| “ | Her Britannic Majesty, at the request of the Catholic King, does consent and agree that no leave shall be given, under any pretext whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar. | ” |
However, the British ignored this provision. The admission of Jews was one of the infractions against the Treaty of Utrecht that the Spanish used (others were the admission of Moors, the extension of fortifications and the alleged smuggling from Gibraltar)[2] 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 Gibraltar. Jews were given the right to permanent settlement in 1749, when Isaac Nieto, the new community's first Rabbi, came to the country 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.[3] 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. 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 Jew born in Tetuan, was listed as having two wives, Hannah Aboab and Simah Aboab. Bigamy 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 Rabenu Gershom Meor Hagola since approximately 1000 CE, this ban was only accepted by Ashkenazik communities] groups).[4]
During the sieges of the city by the Spanish and during the Peninsular War, Jewish civilians valiantly helped defend Gibraltar from invaders.
Most of Gibraltar's Jews evacuated to the United Kingdom proper during the Second World War, when the 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 Rabbi Josef Pacifici, who assumed the Gibraltar rabbinate and took control of Jewish education in Gibraltar, have helped reverse this tendency. In 1984 Rabbi Ron Hassid became the new Chief Rabbi and has been there ever since. Since he arrived he has impacted Gibraltar and much of the surrounding communities in Spain, Mellila and Ceuta. The Jewish communities have become much stronger which can be directly attributed to him
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 before his death. 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 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 this has been done officially.[5][6]
In 1753, when the first census was taken, the Jewish population of Gibraltar was 575 out of about 1,800 civilian inhabitants.[7] This had risen to 863 by 1777. In 1787 the population had fallen to 776. By 1830 the civilian population numbered 17,000, of which 1,300 were "native" Jews and 600 recent Jewish immigrants,[8] and by 1878 the community had reached its numerical peak of 1,533. In 2001, there were 584 Jews (roughly 2% of the total population), of whom 464 were self-described Gibraltarian, 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. A large number of Gibraltar's Jews are Sephardic, but there are a number of English Jews.
Languages spoken in the Jewish community include English, Spanish, Ladino (spoken by the large Sephardic population) and Arabic (traditionally spoken by some of the population that 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.
|
||||||||||||||