The Jewish presence in Hispania in the course of antiquity can be traced back to the age of the Roman Empire . The dire situation of this people in the last stages of Visigoth domination changed for the better after the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula carried out by several Muslim factions, which all through the first century of their rule supported their settlement in the cities of al-Andalus. This allowed for their aljamas (self governing communities of Moors and Jews) to flourish. But after the 11 th century, with the Almoravid dynasty coming into power, there was a substantial change because they did not show a large amount of understanding towards Christians and Jews; something utterly similar would happen in the 12 th and 13 th centuries during the domination of the Almohad dynasty.

For the duration of the Late Middle Ages (14 th and 15 th centuries) there was an important Jewish population distributed in many cities of the Hispanic kingdoms (such as Cordova , Valencia , Saragossa , León, Segovia , Girona, the city of Palma in Majorca, Lisbon and Toledo among many others). Those Jewish groups became subject to stern laws and regulations, mainly the ones of Ayllón in 1412, which caused the segregation of the Jews within isolated quarters.

The thousand-year-old presence of the Jews in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon came to an end on the occasion of the signing of the Decreto de Expulsión de los Judíos , which took place on March 31 st 1492 , endorsed by the Catholic Monarchs (Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon ). The Jews are forced to convert to Christianity or they faced expulsion, mainly towards Portugal (which in its turn expelled them in 1497), to the North of Africa or Italy . This Diaspora caused a great demographic as well as cultural flow, which resulted in a profound Hispanicizing of the Jewish world around the Mediterranean .