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JewishHistoryעברית

Granada massacre of 1066

Date
30 December 1066
Location
GranadaSpain
Then part of
Taifa of Granada
Perpetrators
  • Muslim mob in Granada (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
1,500 – 4,000[1]Jews killed. The Jewish Encyclopedia reports more than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons. Encyclopaedia Judaica, citing a later testimony (Solomon ibn Verga), reports more than 1,500 householders killed.
Locality

30% – 80% of the Jewish population of Granada[2]

Worldwide

0.13% – 0.4% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1000)[7]

Category
Massacre, Pogrom
Confidence
DisputedThe Jewish Encyclopedia converts "more than 1,500 families" into about 4,000 persons. Encyclopaedia Judaica cites a later testimony of more than 1,500 householders killed and does not independently confirm 4,000.

Summary

On 30 December 1066 (9 Tevet), after the killing of the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela, a mob in Granada plundered Jewish houses and killed Jews who had not fled. The Jewish Encyclopedia calls this the first persecution of Jews on the peninsula under Islamic rule and reports more than 1,500 families, about 4,000 people, killed in one day. Encyclopaedia Judaica, following Abraham ibn Daud, records that the Jewish community of Granada perished with Joseph, and cites a later figure of more than 1,500 householders. Survivors were forced to sell their houses and leave; some later returned.

Sources

  1. Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, Granada. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  2. Granada. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 1,000,000 – 1,200,000[7]c. 1000Botticini and Eckstein Table 7 holds world Jewry at about 1–1.2 million from ca. 750 to ca. 1170 (roughly constant across the eighth through twelfth centuries). No separate millennial census figure is given; the year stands for that span.
  • Granada: 5,000[2]Encyclopaedia Judaica's estimate of the Jewish population of Granada in the eleventh century, when Samuel ha-Nagid led the community, about a decade before the massacre of 30 December 1066. The same article gives the figure as about a fifth of the city's population.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
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  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
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