MEDINA DE POMAR

MEDINA DE POMAR, town in Castile, N. Spain. The Jewish settlement here was one of the flourishing communities in 13th-century Castile. Like other Jews in the area, Jewish residents of Medina de Pomar owned vineyards and lands and engaged in commerce and crafts. Joseph Nasi and abraham benveniste de Soria, both of Medina, supplied grain and money to the army stationed on the border in 1429–30. On March 12, 1475, two Jewish cloth merchants, Josi Leal and Moses Sasson, complained that the authorities had prohibited visiting Jews from trading and buying goods in Medina. Conversely in 1490 the Jews of Medina complained to the crown that the Bilbao municipal council had banned visiting Jews from staying there overnight and that they had therefore been unable to attend the fair at Medina del Campo. After the edict of expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the Jews of Medina de Pomar asked the crown for redress because the Christians had refused to pay their debts. Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the municipal authorities to deal with the matter expeditiously to enable the Jews to leave on time. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, Urkunden, index; F. Cantera, Sinagogas españolas (1955), 244f.; Suárez Fernández, Documentos, index. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: I. Cadinaños Bardeci, in: Sefarad, 45 (1985), 237–80; R. Pérez Bustamante, in: Encuentros en Sefarad (1987), 45–70. (Haim Beinart)