HUETE

HUETE (Huepte), town in Castile, central Spain, situated between Cuenca and Guadalajara. There was a prosperous Jewish community there during the 13th century. In 1307 Ferdinand IV confirmed that the queen mother and other dignitaries could continue to receive the revenues they derived from the Jewish quarter of Huete. The Jews of Huete were attacked in 1391, but we have no information about the extent of the losses and damages the Jews there suffered. From that time, however, there was a converso group in Huete. The communal tax regulations, established in 1437 by John II, were confirmed in 1476 by Ferdinand and Isabella, who also ratified the Huete community's charter of privileges. In the second half of the 15th century there were in Huete 150 Jewish families, numbering about 750 Jews. When the decree of expulsion of the Jews from Spain was issued in March 1492, the Jews of Huete demonstrated and claimed that they had been given four years to leave the kingdom. Ferdinand and Isabella ordered that measures should be taken to punish them (May 12, 1492). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.J. Amor Calzas, Curiosidades históricas de Huete (1909), 13, 30, 85f.; Piles Ros, in: Sefarad, 7 (1947), 356; Suárez Fernández, Documentos, index; Leon Tello, in: Instituto Tello Téllez de Meneses, 25 (1966), 21. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Carrete Parrondo, in: Sefarad, 36 (1976), 121–40; idem, in: American Sephardi, 9 (1978), 15–21; idem, in: Anuario de estudios medievales, 12 (1982), 411–19; J. Blázquez Miguel, Huete y su tierra; un enclave inquisitorial conquense, (1987) (On crypto-Jews, see pp. 42–63). (Haim Beinart / Yom Tov Assis (2nd ed.)