5. The Spanish Exiles The expulsion of the Jews from Spain, in 1492, was truly catastrophic. Thereafter, the choice of new land was limited as well. Whole regions of western Europe, including England and Wales, France and Provence, Sicily and Sardinia, and the whole Iberian peninsula, were closed to Jewish settlement. In Germany Jews were expelled from most cities and barred from most jobs. Yet, this was only a grim foreboding of things to come...Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/