MIRANDA DE EBRO

MIRANDA DE EBRO , city in Castile, N. Spain. It had one of the oldest Jewish communities in Castile. The fuero ("municipal charter") granted to Miranda de Ebro in 1099 gave the Jews equal rights with the Christian and Moorish residents. In 1290 the community numbered 15 families who paid an annual tax of 3,312 maravedis and 744 maravedis in services. Jews from Miranda went to work in the fields of neighboring villages. In 1304 Ferdinand iv confirmed that the Jews, Moors, and Christians in Miranda had equal rights, in particular as regards financial liabilities. Ferdinand's ruling was reconfirmed by Alfonso xi in 1347 and by Pedro i in 1351. In 1360, at the beginning of the civil war between Pedro the Cruel and Henry of Trastamara, Henry's supporters in the city attacked the Jewish population and many were massacred. Pedro punished the ringleaders and the municipal authorities but, on finally gaining control of the city, Henry granted a moratorium on debts owed to Jews for a year. The privileges of Jews in Miranda, as enumerated to the authorities in Burgos in 1453, included the right to own synagogues, to participate in the tax apportionment, and to work on Sundays at home or in closed workshops, as well as exemption from paying dues to the cathedral. By the system of taxation introduced by Jacob ibn Nuñez in 1474, several neighboring communities were joined with Miranda and their joint tax was fixed at 2,000 maravedis. In 1485 they had to pay a levy of 107 castellanos for the war with Granada. On the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the synagogue of Miranda was handed over to the municipal council. The remains of the synagogue in Miranda are preserved in a house in Calle de la Fuenta (no. 18). The Jewish quarter was located in and around the present Calle de la Independencia (formerly de los Judíos).

bibliography:

Baer, Spain, 1 (1961), 423; Baer, Urkunden, index; F. Cantera, Fuero de Miranda de Ebro (1945); idem, Sinagogas españolas (1955), 246–51; idem, in: Sefarad, 1 (1941), 89–140; 2 (1942), 327–75; 22 (1962), 15–16; Suárez Fernández, Documentos, index.

[Haim Beinart]