Mamluk Rule and the Spanish Expulsion

TIMELINE 4E

Mamluk Rule and the Spanish Expulsion

1260 to 1517

The Mamluk sultans of Egypt drive out the last Crusaders and rule the land as a province. In Europe Jews face expulsions, and Spain expels its Jews in 1492.

TURNING POINTS

1260 The Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut. The Mamluks of Egypt take over the land.

1267 Nachmanides arrives in Jerusalem. The great scholar re-establishes the Jewish community and opens a synagogue.

1291 The Mamluks raze the coast. Acre and the other ports are torn down so that the Crusaders cannot return.

1348 The Black Death. The plague kills much of the population of the land.

1474 The Ramban Synagogue is destroyed. Jews of Jerusalem rebuild it the next year.

1488 Rabbi Ovadiah of Bertinoro arrives in Jerusalem. He revives its community.

1492 Spain expels its Jews. Many settle in Ottoman lands, among them Safed and Jerusalem.

ALSO IN THIS PERIOD

1266 Sultan Baybars takes Safed from the Templars.

c. 1300 Safed becomes the capital of a Mamluk province in the Galilee.

1322 Ishtori Haparchi completes Kaftor va-Ferach, the first Hebrew geography of the land.

c. 1336 The Cotton Merchants’ Market is built in Jerusalem.

c. 1400 The Ramban Synagogue moves to its site in the Jewish Quarter.

1428 Jews and Franciscans clash over David’s Tomb on Mount Zion.

1481 Meshullam of Volterra travels through the land and writes an account.

1495 Mujir al-Din writes his history of Jerusalem and Hebron.

1497 Portugal forces its Jews to convert.

1516 The Ottomans defeat the Mamluks at Marj Dabiq.