Between the pogroms of 1391 and the expulsion of 1492, Iberian Jews and conversos maintained a tenacious bond with the Land of Israel despite catastrophic violence and forced conversion. Through ideologically driven appeals for emigration, philanthropic networks, messianic ferment after 1453, and documented, if modest, settlement in Jerusalem, Safed, and Hebron, they kept the dream of Zion alive across a century of destruction.

The century between 1391 and 1492 marked both the twilight of medieval Spanish Jewry and a remarkable testament to resilience. In these hundred years, Iberian Jews endured catastrophic violence, forced conversions, and displacement on a scale that shattered centuries-old communities. Yet their spiritual and material bonds to the Land of Israel remained unbroken.

The turning point came in 1391, when anti-Jewish pogroms erupted across Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia following the inflammatory preaching of Ferrand Martínez. Synagogues were torched, Jewish quarters pillaged, and tens of thousands were baptized under duress. These events decimated Spain’s Jewish cultural and religious centers and gave rise to a new, complex social reality: the conversos. The catastrophe of 1391 was compounded by the Laws of Valladolid in 1412, which confined Jews to separate quarters and imposed crushing restrictions, and the prolonged Disputation of Tortosa (1413–14). This coerced theological........

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