You may have seen a newspaper article last week about the parliament in Majorca. They have just acknowledged the centuries of discrimination and persecution that were heaped upon the local Xueta community - descendants of Majorcan Jews who became known as conversos because they were forcibly converted to Christianity in the 14th and 15th centuries.
An acknowledgment is not the same as an apology and the declaration that the parliament made has no legal force but it was something of a breakthrough. For the first time, the government of Majorca has formally faced up to the fact that for over 600 years they have shamefully treated the descendants of those forced to convert to Christianity. The Majorcan Parliament’s resolution follows (though may not be linked to) Xueta Island, a documentary about Majorca’s ancient Xueta (or Chueta) community, released last year by the New York film maker Dani Rotstein.
Trapped in their island ghetto, for centuries the Xueta community of Majorca was unique among the global Jewish population.
Jews have probably lived on the Spanish island of Majorca, in the Western Mediterranean, since the 4th or 5th centuries, though the earliest reliable evidence of their settlement dates from 1135. During the 14th century, as a result of pressure from the Church, small numbers of Jews in Majorca and on the Spanish mainland converted to Christianity. As the century progressed the pressure grew, leading to more and more conversions. Then, in 1391, an outbreak of anti-Jewish riots and pogroms in Spain resulted in a flood of conversions; maybe as many as half of the Jews in the country rushed to save their lives by converting to Christianity.
The Spanish pogroms soon spread to Majorca. Many of the Jews living in the island’s villages fled to the capital, Palma. Those who did not, were wiped out. The authorities in Palma tried to fortify the Call, the Jewish quarter, to protect those living inside. But on July 10th, 1391, a mob broke in and massacred dozens of Jews. The survivors converted to Christianity; it was the only way that they could guarantee the safety of their families. A list still exists containing the names of 111 Jewish families who converted to Christianity.
Over 30,000 people attended his execution, it was the first public burning in living memory. The effigies of six fugitive Portuguese conversos were pointlessly burned alongside him.
In the years following the riots, the authorities tried to reassure the Jews that they were welcome on the island. Many of them had fled to North Africa when the riots broke out; the governor offered to protect them if they agreed to return. He invited 150 Jewish families from Portugal to come and live on Majorca; they arrived in 1395. But the authorities’ efforts to restore the Jewish community were futile. Over the years more and more Jews succumbed to the pressure and threats of the conversionary preachers. When violence broke out again in 1435, the remainder of Jews in Majorca accepted baptism.
Enter the Inquisition
The Inquisition was not convinced that all the conversions were genuine. They believed that some of those who had been baptised were still living secretly as Jews, a capital crime in those fearsome days. In 1489, they held an auto da fe, a public show trial that culminated in the death or flogging of the accused. 53 converts were condemned to be burnt at the stake. Fortunately most of them had fled by the time sentence was passed, so they were burnt in effigy. Further autos da fe followed. In 1490, another 36 converts were condemned to the flames while 140 were ‘reconciled’, meaning they were flogged, imprisoned or sent to sea, forced to row in the navy’s galleys.
The Inquisition’s persecution of the converted Jews encouraged the local population to turn against them. Jews had converted to Christianity thinking that they would be accepted as equals, but they soon discovered that they could not shake off the stigma of their former lives. Instead of being despised as Jews, they were now despised as former Jews. The locals called them Xuetes. There is disagreement about the origin of the word means, but it became a term of abuse. Although they attended church and lived as obedient Catholics, the Xuetes found themselves segregated. They were all obliged to live together in the same quarter of the town, they sat together in church, married amongst themselves and were even buried in a separate area of the cemetery. When, in 1492, the King and Queen of Spain expelled all the Jews from their territory, there was nobody left to expel from Majorca. All the Jews had become Xuetes.
Life didn’t improve for Majorca’s persecuted Xuetes. By 1531, a total of 535 Xuetes had been found guilty of living secret Jewish lives, for which they were set on fire. Things did go quiet for a hundred years or so while the Inquisition turned their attention on Moslems who had similarly been forced to convert, but in 1675 the waves of anti-Xuete persecution started up again.
The immediate cause of the persecutions was the Spanish navy’s interception of a boat containing 17 Jews. They had recently set off from Oran in North Africa, fleeing the Spanish who had conquered the city. They were sailing to Livorno in Italy, hoping to answer the deluded call of Shabbetai Tzvi, who had entranced half the Jews of Europe into believing he was the Messiah.
The Spanish navy took the boat to Majorca. Among the passengers was Alonso Lopez, a boy of about 16 or 17. He was arrested on arrival in Majorca and confessed to the Inquisition that although he had been born to a converso family, he was now living as a Jew. He was imprisoned for months but even in the face of continual pressure he refused to renounce his Judaism. Despite the bishop’s intervention the boy was burnt alive at the Gate of Jesus, outside Palma’s city walls. Over 30,000 people attended his execution, it was the first public burning in living memory. The effigies of six fugitive Portuguese conversos were pointlessly burned alongside him.
Lopez’s death affected the Xueta community profoundly. They had seen him sacrifice his life for his religion and it led them to reevaluate their own identities and religious commitment. They secretly opened a synagogue in an outlying house and conducted clandestine services. The Inquisition of course found out, hundreds of Xuetes were arrested, all their property was confiscated and five separate autos da fe, were held across the island. By the end of 1677, 237 Xuetas were in gaol; their property confiscated.
Some of the Xuetes were not cowed. A group of them, by all accounts the wealthy merchants in the community, decided they would not put with the persecution any longer. In 1688 they hired a ship and set sail for England. But fate was not with them. The winds blew their vessel back to shore, they were arrested, imprisoned, flogged and, some years later, executed, but only after all their possessions and money had been confiscated. The Inquisitor and the Crown did very well for themselves out of all the confiscated property.
Partial Relief
The persecutions carried on for another hundred years. However, in 1782 the Spanish King, Charles III responded to petitions submitted by the Xuetes by giving them the freedom to live wherever they wanted on the island. A few years later he allowed them to serve in the army and navy and gave them permission to practise whatever trade or profession they chose.
The backlash from the local population was immediate. They ignored all the decrees, and although discrimination against the Xuetes was now prohibited, even as late as 1916 the author Vincente Blasco Ibanez was describing with great sympathy the prejudices that the Xuetes still had to contend with. Older members of the Xueta community still talk about growing up feeling that they were ostracised. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the stigma began to fade.
Because the Xuetes were obliged to only marry each other until the 20th century, there are 15 surnames on the island that are exclusively Xueta. These days over 20,000 people in Majorca have one of those names; they are the same as the names of the Xuetes who had tried to sail to England in 1688.
In 2011, the highly respected Israeli Rabbi, Nissim Karelitz, formally declared that, since they had always intermarried, the Xuetes of Majorca are, and always have been, Jews. Most Xuetes in Majorca have little interest in practising their faith but there is now a small religious Xueta community on the island. An Israeli rabbi who was born to a Xueta family visits them every few weeks.
It is interesting to contrast the lengthy persecution of the Xuetes with what happened to those who were similarly forced to convert in Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century. Known variously as conversos, marranos or New Christians, many suffered similar fates to the Xuetes; accused by the Inquisition of living secret Jewish lives and being executed by fire. But that was by no means the fate of everybody. Many of those who chose to convert to Christianity in Spain and Portugal became reconciled with their new lives and gradually assimilated into the wider population. They did not find themselves perpetually ostracised as the Xuetes had been.
As for those whose who had converted for expediency, to save their lives and those of their children; most had family members and friends who had been expelled from the country and were now rebuilding their lives elsewhere. Although conversos were not permitted to leave the land, over the years clandestine escape routes were set up for who wished to flee. Communities of former conversos formed in places like Hamburg, Amsterdam, Venice and Istanbul. They grew into a powerful international trading network, with connections to the other Jewish communities of Europe and secret links back to their former contacts in Portugal and Spain. The forced conversions and the Inquisition had ruined the lives of Jews in Spain and Portugal, just as they did in Majorca. But the conversos in Spain and Portugal either assimilated or escaped. The Xuetes in Majorca could do neither.
Trapped in their island ghetto, for centuries the Xueta community of Majorca was unique among the global Jewish population. A forgotten remnant of the years of forced conversion, their story only became better known once Majorca opened up as a tourist destination in the mid-20th century.
I am only aware of three English language books dedicated to the Xuetes. Two were first written in 1936: Baruch Braustein’s The Chuetas of Mallorca. Conversos and the Inquisition of Mallorca and Abraham Lionel Isaac’s, The Jews of Majorca. There is also Angela Selke’s 1986 book, The Conversos of Majorca: Life and Death in a Crypto-Jewish Community in XVII Century. Still, it is now possible to go on heritage tours of the island, to hear more about the lives of some of the Xuetes. They are finally emerging from their lengthy obscurity.