ALMERÍA

ALMERÍA, Spanish Mediterranean seaport. A Jewish community was formed in Almería at the end of the tenth century by refugees from the neighboring settlement of Pechina. The community became one of the most prosperous and important in Andalusia. The Jewish quarter was near the harbor. With the fall of the Caliphate many Jews of Córdoba moved to Almería. The Jews were engaged in maritime trade. Approximately 2000 Jews lived in Almería at the time. In the 11th century, the vizier of Almería, Ibn Abbas, published libelous tracts against samuel ha-Nagid, vizier to the king of Granada, and the Jews. His attitude led to war, in the course of which the king of Almería was killed and Ibn Abbas executed on Samuel's instructions. According to Abraham Ibn Ezra's historical elegy (Ahah Yarad, line 4), no Jews in Almería survived the Almohade persecution of the mid-12th century, but the community revived subsequently. Later, the black death resulted in much suffering. The treaty of surrender on the Christian Reconquest of Almería in 1489 afforded the Jews the same protection as the Moors. The conquerors found there some Conversos who had fled from Castile. After the edict of expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 a number of exiles sailed from Almería for North Africa. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, Spain, index; M. Garrido Atienza, Las capitulaciones para la entrega de Granada (1910), 187. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain (1979), 295–300; L. Torres Balbás, in: Al-Andalus, 22 (1957), 438. (Haim Beinart / Eliyahu Ashtor)