ÉCIJA

ÉCIJA , city in Seville, S. Spain. We have no information on the Jews of Écija in the Muslim period. The earliest information concerning Jews there dates from the 13^th century. Following its conquest by Ferdinand iii, Zulema, a Jewish courtier, was given substantial property. The size of the Jewish community can be judged from the fact that for the year 1293 its tax amounted to 5,000 maravedis. Its most prominent member was the wealthy Don Yuçaf (Joseph) de *Écija (Joseph ha-Levi ibn Shabbat), who distinguished himself in the service of Alfonso xi of Castile. In 1332 he endowed a yeshivah in Écija, and provided stipends for the scholars who studied in it. The persecutions of 1391 struck Écija and its synagogue was destroyed by order of Fernando *Martínez, who was archdeacon of Écija. However, when in 1396 the archbishop of Toledo demanded from the vicar of Écija an account of the destruction of the synagogue, he was told that it was razed by the mob. It is not known when the community was reconstituted, but its tax assessment in 1439 was 6,800 maravedis, in old coin. The community apparently lasted until the expulsion of 1492. There was also an organized group of *Conversos, which in 1477 had as its leader a New Christian named Fernando de Trujillo.

bibliography:

Baer, Urkunden, index; Baer, Spain, index; H. Beinart, Anusim be-Din ha-Inkviziẓyah (1965), 62; Ballesteros, in: Sefarad, 6 (1946), 253–87; R. Menéndez Pidal, Documentos linguísticos de España, 1 (19662), 475–7; F. Cantera Burgos, Sinagogas Españolas (1955), 203–12. add. bibliography: J. Aranda Doncel, in: Boletín de la Real Academía de Córdoba, 104 (1983), 5–18.

[Haim Beinart]