MÁLAGA

MÁLAGA, port in Andalusia, S. Spain. A Phoenician-Punic necropolis has been discovered there. In the Muslim period, the Jewish quarter was located in the eastern part of the city: the cemetery was on the slopes of Gibralfaro. In 863, at the time of the heresy of the bishop of Málaga, Hostegesis, he was alleged to have attached Jews from Málaga to the regional clerical councils as specialists in the principles of Christianity. Málaga served as a refuge for samuel ha-nagid and other Jews who reached there in 1013 after the Berbers captured Córdoba. solomon ibn gabirol was born in Málaga (c. 1021). In the mid-11th century the Jews numbered 200 out of a population of approximately 20,000. When Málaga was captured by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1487 there were 100 Jewish families living there, and another group of 55 Jews were living in nearby Vélez-Málaga. All these were taken captive. The Jews of the kingdom had to pay 10 million maravedis for their ransom. abraham seneor and Meir of Segovia traveled through Andalusia to raise the money, and solomon ibn verga was also active. The Catholic Monarchs had already ordered in 1490 that Málaga should be settled by Christians. The Jews and Moors, excepting certain Moors named in the royal edict, were ordered to leave Málaga within 15 days. Sixty-two exiles whose names were stated left Málaga, most of them persons in poor circumstances. Judah b. Jacob Ḥayyat in his introduction to Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut records how on leaving Portugal in 1493 his ship was seized by Basque pirates and brought to Málaga, where local clergy attempted to convert the captives. The community of Málaga was revived in the early 1960s by Jews from North Africa. It has a community center and is affiliated to the organization of Jewish communities in Spain. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, Spain, 2 (1966), index; Baer, Urkunden, 1 (1929), index; Ashtor, Korot, 1 (1960), 29, 63–64; idem, in: Zion, 28 (1963), 52–53; J. Millás Vallicrosa, in: Sefarad, 1 (1941), 316; A. Garcia y Bellido, ibid., 2 (1942), 25f., 52, 83, 90, 286f.; L. Torres Balba, in: Al Andalus, 19 (1954), 197; J. Wiseman, Roman Spain (1956), 200; Suárez Fernández, Documentos, index; M.A. Ladero Quesada, in: Hispania, 27 (1967), 76–83 (Sp.). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Carrete Parrondo, in: Actas del I Congreso de Historia de Andalucía (1978), vol. 1, Andalucía medieval, 321–27; Y. Kaplan, in: Actas del I Congreso de Historia de Andalucía (1978), vol. 2, Andalucía moderna, 109–16; M.F. García Casar, in: Helmantica, 33 (1982), 157–62; M.I. Pérez de Colosía Rodríguez, Auto inquisitorial de 1672: el criptojudísmo en Málaga (1984). (Haim Beinart)