[jjotto]

Actually, this was the time of separation between the European “Ashkenazi” Jews and the Jews from Muslim lands (Sefaradim). Limited interaction resulted in distinct differences between the two groups.

Lending money, by the way, was many times a precondition for Jews being allowed to live in Christian lands.

[RobbyS]

When the Jews in Spain were expelled, they sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. These exiles did not, of course, have kind feelings for the Spanish.

I am often surprised that so few Americans know that not ,only were then Turks a European power but that they were by far the greatest Power, that their empire was as large as the old Roman Empire, that even the Barbary Pirates were a very significant military power who more held their own against the Western Powers down to the 19th Century.