History of the Jews in Gibraltar
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There has been a Jewish presence in Gibraltar for more than 650 years. There have been periods of persecution, but for the most part the Jews of Gibraltar have prospered and been one of the largest religious minorities in the city, as well as making contributions to the culture, defense, and government of Gibraltar.
History
Early History to 1492
The first record of Jews in Gibraltar comes from the year 1356, when the community issued an appeal asking for the ransom of a group of Jews taken captive by pirates. Another document indicates that a number of Jews fleeing Cordoba sought refuge in Gibraltar in 1473.
Jews were expelled from the entire Iberian Peninsula under the Alhambra decree in 1492, effectively ending all Jewish activity there, except in the cases of Conversos or possible Crypto-Jews.
British Rule
After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Gibraltar came under the rule of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which made the area a British dependency. In the Treaty, the Spanish added the following clause barring Jews and Moroccans from the city:
Her Britannic Majesty, at the request of the Catholic King, does consent and agree that no leave shall be given, under any pretext whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar.
However, the British did not keep to this agreement. The Spanish claimed the British had breeched the treaty, and laid siege to the city in 1727, but were unsuccessful. In 1729, Moroccan Jews returned to the city to engage in commerce. Jews legally returned to the city in 1749, when Isaac Nieto, the new community's first Rabbi, came to the country from London and established congregation Shaar Hashamayim, the oldest synagogue in Gibraltar, otherwise known as the Great Synagogue. Three more synagogues, all of which still function on Shabbat and feast days, were built as years went by: Nefutsot Yehuda and Ets Hayim in 1781, as well as the Abudarham Synagogua in 1820. Jewish population figures continued to grow, reaching its peak in the mid-19th century.
It should be noted that some antiquated customs were preserved among the Jews of Gibraltar. For example, in 1777, Issac Aboab, a Gibraltarian Jew born in Tetuan, was listed as having two wives, Hannah Aboab and Simah Aboab. Bigamy was illegal in the Kingdom of Great Britain at the time, but the law was apparently not fully operative in Gibraltar at the time, and though many Jewish groups had abandoned polygamy, this shows that it was not the case in all groups (particularly some Sephardic and Mizrahi groups[1]).
Twentieth Century and Today
Most of Gibraltar's Jews evacuated to the United Kingdom proper during the Second World War, when Gibraltar was used as an Allied base of operations. Some opted to stay in the United Kingdom, but most returned, although there was a slackening in some of their religious practices. This trend was reversed, however, in good part by the efforts of Rabbi Josef Pacifici, who assumed the Gibraltar rabbinate and took control of Jewish education in Gibraltar. Several Gibraltarian Jews have served in important positions in the Government there in the 20th century, particularly Joshua Hassan, who served as Chief Minister of Gibraltar for two separate terms before his death. The city maintains five Kosher institutions and two Jewish primary schools. In 2004, at a celebration of the 300 years since the British takeover, the congregants at the Great Synagogue (Shaar Hashamayim) preformed the anthem "God Save the Queen" in Hebrew, the first time this has been done officially.
Historical Demographics
In 1753, when the first census was taken, the Jewish population of Gibraltar was 575. This had risen to 863 by 1777. In 1787 the population had fallen to 776. Exact figures are not available for most the 19th century, but it is known that in 1805, they made up nearly half of the city's civilian population, and by 1878 the community had reached its numerical peak of 1,533. In 2001, there were 584 Jews (roughly 2% of the total population), of whom 464 were self-described Gibraltarians, 63 were "Other British", 4 were Moroccan and 18 Spanish. Five Jews came from other European Union countries, and 39 did not hail from Gibraltar, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Spain, or any other countries in the European Union. A large number of Gibraltar's Jews are Sephardic, but there are a number of English Jews. Languages spoken in the community include English, Ladino (spoken by the large Sephardic population) and Arabic (traditionally spoken by some of the historical Moroccan population).
Anti-Semitism in Gibraltar
Significantly, the Jews of Gibraltar have faced almost no anti-Semitism during their time in the city (with the exception of the period of Spanish rule). During Gibraltar's tercentenary celebration, Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, was quoted as saying, "In the dark times of expulsion and inquisition, Gibraltar lit the beacon of tolerance," and that Gibraltar "is probably the community where Jews have been the most integrated."
Jewish contributions to Gibraltarian culture
Llanito, the vernacular language for the majority of Gibraltarians, has significant Jewish influence. Some 500 words are of Hebrew origin, and the language also has features of influence from Haketia, a Judeo-Spanish language spoken by the Sephardic communities of Northern Morocco and the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
During the sieges of the city by the Spanish and during the Peninsular War, Jewish civilians valiantly helped defend Gibraltar from invaders.
References
- Official Government of Gibraltar London Website
- The Telegraph: Gibraltar rocks to Hebrew 'God Save the Queen'
- Jewish Encyclopedia
- Jewish Virtual Library: Gibraltar
- Jewish Gibraltar
- Gibraltar 2001 Census
- Llanito
