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JewishHistoryעברית

Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily and Sardinia

Date
March 1492 – January 1493
Location
Sicily and SardiniaItaly
Then part of
Crown of Aragon
Perpetrators
  • Ferdinand II of Aragon (State)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Expelled (estimate)
37,000[2]Encyclopaedia Judaica's estimate of Jews who had to leave Sicily (source 2). The same dispute notes an Encyclopaedia Judaica calculation of almost 40,000. The Jewish Encyclopedia's figure of over 100,000 is the number living on the island, not the number who left. Sardinia has no departure count.
Locality

37% – 100% of the Jewish population of Sicily and Sardinia[1]

Country

62% – 140% of the Jewish population of Crown of Aragon (c. 1391)[13]The expelled estimate is higher than the population estimate.

Worldwide

2.8% – 4.6% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1490)[15]

Category
Expulsion
Confidence
DisputedSources agree that Jews were expelled from Sicily and Sardinia under the 1492 Spanish edict, completed by early 1493. They disagree on how many left Sicily: Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jewish Virtual Library) calculates almost 40,000, and its Sicily article estimates 37,000; the Jewish Encyclopedia says there were over 100,000 Jews on the island when the decree arrived. Sardinia's numbers are not given.

Summary

After the edict of 31 March 1492 ordering Jews to leave the Spanish kingdoms, the same measure was applied in Sicily and Sardinia, then under Aragonese rule. Encyclopaedia Judaica states that it was promulgated in May and that the expulsion was completed by January 1493; in Sicily 6,300 Jewish-owned houses were confiscated and a levy of 100,000 florins was imposed. The Jewish Encyclopedia records that the decree was proclaimed in Sicilian towns with a deadline later postponed, after payment of 5,000 gulden, to 12 January 1493, and that departure took place on 31 December 1492. Most of the island exiles went to mainland Italy; others went to North Africa, Greece, the Ottoman Empire and the Levant. The Jewish Encyclopedia of Sardinia states that the banishment of the Jews from Spain was closely followed by that of the Jews of Sardinia.

Sources

  1. Joseph Jacobs, Schulim Ochser, Sicily (section "Decree of Expulsion"). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  2. Sicily. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)
  3. Italy (section "The Crisis (1492–1600)"). Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)
  4. Joseph Jacobs, Isaac Broydé, Sardinia (section "Persecution and Expulsion"). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 800,000 – 1,300,000[15]c. 1490DellaPergola's Fundamentals Table 2 gives 1.3 million in 1490. Botticini and Eckstein Table 9 give about 0.8–1 million for the late fifteenth century; their Chosen Few summary puts world Jewry below one million on the eve of the 1492–97 Iberian expulsions.
  • Crown of Aragon: 27,000 – 60,000[13]c. 1391Schraer gives 30,000–60,000 Jews in the Crown of Aragon; Riera, cited there, records 27,000 across 76 aljamas in 1391.
  • Sicily and Sardinia: 37,000 – 100,000[1]These figures are for Sicily when the decree of 1492 arrived, the year this expulsion began. They are not a count for one town, and Sardinia is not included because no number for that island was found. The Jewish Encyclopedia says over 100,000 Jews were living on Sicily; 100,000 is that source's stated threshold. Encyclopaedia Judaica estimates that 37,000 had to leave.

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)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  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)
  14. Statistics of Jews. American Jewish Year Book 1917–1918, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1918)
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  16. Israel Bartal and Kenneth B. Moss, The Jews of the Russian Empire in the Late 19th Century. The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization
  17. Russia (Census Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906)
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  19. Игорь Виленский, Оценка сокращения численности еврейского населения Российской Империи и СССР (1897–1926). Еврейская Старина (2024)
  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
  22. Population of Israel/Palestine by Religion (1553–Present). Jewish Virtual Library (citing CBS, British Mandate publications, Bachi and others)
  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
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  30. Stéphane Mechoulan, The Expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306: a modern fiscal analysis. University of Toronto Department of Economics working paper (2004)
  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
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  33. Jews in Arab Countries. American Jewish Year Book excerpt, Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1978)
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  36. Mark Tolts, Population since World War I. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  37. Davis Trietsch, Die Juden der Türkei. Länder und Völker der Türkei, Heft 8 (Leipzig) (1915)
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  46. France. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
  60. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book 1981 (estimates for 1979), via Berman Jewish DataBank (1981)
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
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  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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