Sephardic Jews DNA results

[Traveler]

What this article does not take into account are the Jewish converts who returned to the Iberian Peninsula after the general expulsion of 1492.

According to Joseph Pérez, the total number of converts finally expelled, after the return of someof them, would be around 50,000.

I don't like wikipedia links, but this particular paragraph summarize very well what I mean.


The number of Jews expelled remains a matter of controversy. The figures have ranged between 45,000 and 350,000, although the most recent investigations, according to Joseph Pérez, place it at around 50,000, taking into account the thousands of Jews who, after leaving, returned due to the mistreatment they suffered in some reception places, such as Fez, Morocco.[67] Julio Valdeón, also citing the latest research, places the figure between 70,000 and 100,000, of which between 50,000 and 80,000 would come from the Crown of Castile, although in These numbers do not count those returned.[67]

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsi%...spa%C3%B1a

Other paragraph of Joseph Pérez’s book (Los judíos en España):

“All expenses were borne by those expelled: travel, maintenance, boat freight, rights of passage... They contracted ships at very high prices whose owners later did not fulfill the contract; Other bosses murdered those they were carrying to steal the little they owned. How many Jews left Spain then? The evaluations that have been given vary between 40,000 and 350,000; Bernáldez speaks of 170,000. The most recent works, based on reliable sources, give a total of less than 50,000, taking into account those who returned.
There was a proportion that is difficult to specify. Luis Suárez Fernández has been able to give a list of 177 names, generally heads of families, which implies that the number of individuals is higher. Many of those who had gone to Fez, in view of the poor treatment they were given, preferred to return to Spain and asked the governor of Asilah to baptize them.”

The book is written in spanish. I don’t know if there is an english version.

FWIW, I'm inclined to go with Joseph R. Hacker's (Cambridge History of Judaism) figure of roughly 60,000 Jews permanently leaving both Iberia and Southern Italy between 1492 and 1521. That doesn't take into account those who left earlier or later. It's logical to group both those regions together, because the boundaries are porous, and a portion of the Jews leaving Southern Italy would have been of ultimate Iberian origin, either before or after 1492. It also doesn't account for those who left later, namely the Portuguese conversos who exited Portugal/Spain over a century later to form the Western Sephardic communities of Northwestern Europe and other locations. (I'm "passenger" from AG, btw)