“forcing them to convert to Catholicism or burning them at the stake”
Yes. Or rather, no.
They were given the choice of converting or leaving. No man who could say, “I am a Jew, and everyone has always known it,” was ever burned.
Burned were Jews who faked conversion to stay in Spain but secretly remained practicing Jews.
And such is the vice of government churches — they can even exile whole groups who don’t do anything but dissent from the church doctrine.
Losing a homeland is better than losing a life I suppose, but it brought an old biblical curse upon Spain.
Mel Brooks was an entertainer, not a historian, and of course he was way off about the role of the Inquisition or the shape of the friars’ legs. Furthermore, Sephardic Jews don’t speak with a Yiddish accent and were much more cosmopolitan in their dress, even back then. It’s silliness, Mel Brooks’ specialty.
I misunderstood what you were replying to. Actually, you’re both partially wrong. There were Jews forcibly converted to Christianity during a really hellish period of pogroms in the years preceding the expulsion of 1492. They practiced Judaism in secret, and Catholicism in public, and with a wink and a nod life went on.
Then Ferdinand and Isabella united their two kingdoms and wanted to raise funds to boot the Muslims out of Spain once and for all, so they established the Inquisition to prosecute these backsliders and confiscate their wealth. They’d confess under torture, forfeit their property, and get burnt at the stake as heretics.
Ferdinand and Isabella financed their war, expelled the Moors, and famously financed Columbus’ voyages. The Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were those that never converted, and it was their last chance to avoid forcible conversion. Those that stayed had to convert or be put to death. Several prominent community leaders did convert and remain.
Many of those who left took refuge in Portugal, where a later wave of persecution saw them all forcibly converted, except for Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel, who left Portugal in a small rowing dingy. The Inquisition stayed in Spain and Portugal until Napoleon’s brother, appointed governor of Spain or something, abolished it.
Burned were Jews who faked conversion to stay in Spain but secretly remained practicing Jews.
Oh. Well, that's different. [/sarcasm]