Jews in Sicily

There is a historical Jewish Quarter in Trapani. We were wondering about synagogues and Jewish cemeteries.

See this link

http://www.dieli.net/SicilyPage/JewishSicily/JewishTraces.html

A brief history of Jews in Sicily can be found at this site:

https://terminiimerese.wordpress.com/cultural-factors/surnames-indicative-of-jewish-heritage-the-neofiti/

In 1492, as part of an attempt to maintain Catholic orthodoxy and purify their kingdom of Moorish influence, the Iberian monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile ordered the forced expulsion or conversion of all Jews in their lands, which included Sicily, on pain of death. In Sicily, the date of the expulsion was extended from September 18, 1492 to January 12, 1493, in order to allow the extortion of opportunist tax levies. One can only imagine the chaos suffered by Termini with the loss of so many Jews who were integral to the maintenance of services and distribution of necessary commodities.

Witnesses recounted the sight of the Jews of Palermo waving from the departing ships to their former neighbors as they were borne away. Many Sicilian Jews fled to neighboring Calabria where the Spanish Inquisition caught up with them again fifty years later. Not all of the Sicilian Jews departed. A considerable number of Sicily’s Jews converted to Catholicism and remained on the island. In Sicily, such converts are referred to as Neofiti (Neophytes) or, as they were known in Portugal when a similar situation presented itself to the Jewish people there, New Catholics.

As fate would have it, the Jews who had left Sicily for the Kingdom of Naples where King Ferrante held no animus against them, were, upon the timely death of this friendly monarch, forced to convert to Catholicism by the French. The converted Jews who survived the ensuing plague in the Kingdom of Naples, returned to Sicily.