CARTAGENA

CARTAGENA, Mediterranean port in Castile, S.E. Spain. Jewish settlement dates from the period of Roman rule in the Iberian Peninsula. The designation Cartageni or Cartigena appearing in the Talmud and Midrash was used to denote the whole of Spain. It appears in the midrashim, including the legend concerning the expedition of Alexander the Great (Lev. R. 27:1). The traditions concerning the Jewish community   there undoubtedly fostered these legends. Detailed information about Cartagena Jewry becomes available after the conquest of the area by Castile in the 13th century. Sancho IV granted the bishop of Cartagena in 1290 an annual tithe from the Jewish taxes, this being confirmed by Ferdinand IV in 1310. Nothing is known of the fate of the Jews in Cartagena during the anti-Jewish rioting in Spain in 1391, but they were probably not spared. There are references to the community during the 15th century. In 1453 the tithes and customs dues of the bishopric were farmed by Don Symuel Aventuriel, and in 1462 by Don David aben Alfacar. The Cartagena community paid the sum of ten castellanos levied in 1485 to prosecute the war in Granada, and the same amount in 1489. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 Cartagena served as a port of embarkation for the exiles. A tribunal of the Inquisition was established in Cartagena in 1500, but little is known of its activities. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baer, Spain, index; Baer, Urkunden, 2 (1936), index; H. Beinart, in: Estudios, 3 (1962), 135; Suárez Fernández, Documentos, index. (Haim Beinart)