CORUNNA

CORUNNA (Sp. La Coruña, Coruniya ), Atlantic seaport in N.W. Spain. Fragments of tombstones found in Corunna show that Jews lived there in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. A street called Sinagoga is still to be found in Corunna. The Jewish community evidently began to expand in the 15^th century along with other centers in northern Castile as Jews moved there from the south. The Jews of Corunna engaged in maritime trade with Castilian and Aragonese ports. In 1451 the community contributed 300 gold pieces toward ransoming a Jew of Murcia who had been taken captive. A tax of 1,800 maravedis was collected from the community in Corunna and others in the vicinity in 1474 by Jacob Aben Nuñez. One of the most beautiful illuminated Hebrew manuscripts in existence, the so-called Kennicott Bible in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was completed in Corunna, for Isaac, son of Don Solomon de Braga, in 1486. The Corunna community apparently flourished until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

bibliography:

H. Beinart, in: Sefunot, 5 (1962), 80, 90; C. Roth, Gleanings (1967), 316–9; I. Loeb, in: rej, 6 (1883), 118–9; Cantera-Millás, Inscripciones, 31ff.; Suárez Fernández, Documentos, index.

[Haim Beinart]

Corunna a port in NW Spain. It was the point of departure for the Armada in 1588 and the site of a battle in 1809 in the Peninsular War, at which British forces under Sir John Moore defeated the French. Moore, who was killed in the battle, was buried in the city.