The year 1391 marks a major rupture in the history of Iberian Judaism.
The pogroms broke out in Castile and Aragon, triggered by the hateful preaching of the archdeacon Ferrand Martínez of Écija. From 1388, this fanatical cleric travelled throughout Andalusia, openly calling for the destruction of synagogues and the forced conversion of the Jews, despite royal prohibitions. On 6 June 1391, the judería (Jewish quarter) of Seville was overrun by the mob: hundreds of Jews were massacred, the synagogues looted and burned. Within three months, the violence spread to more than 70 cities, including Cordoba, Toledo, Barcelona, and Valencia. The Encaoua are among the families who resisted forced conversion.
The most far-reaching feature of the massacres of 1391 was the massive wave of forced conversions. Tens of thousands of Jews accepted baptism under the immediate threat of death. These 'New Christians,' or conversos — often pejoratively called marranos — formed a new and problematic social category. Many continued to practice Judaism in secret (crypto-Judaism), which aroused permanent suspicion on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. This mistrust fed directly into the creation of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, and then the expulsion decree of 1492. The Encaoua who refused conversion — such as Rav Yaakov of Seville — chose martyrdom (kiddush Hashem) or flight to North Africa, keeping the chain of rabbinic transmission intact.
The events of 1391 mark the definitive end of what historians call the 'golden age' of Iberian Judaism. According to the historian Yitzhak Baer, the massacres destroyed the institutional and economic foundations of most of the great Jewish communities of Spain. The Encaoua, present in Toledo, Seville, and Saragossa, stood at the heart of this catastrophe. The family's response was twofold: some branches chose martyrdom and absolute fidelity to the faith (such as Israël Al-Naqua and Yaakov Encaoua), while others took the road of exile toward more hospitable lands — Éphraïm, Israël's son, carrying with him his father's intellectual heritage to Tlemcen. The rabbinate of the Encaoua in Spain was coming to an end, but it was transforming into a Maghrebi rabbinate that would last five centuries.
It was in the wake of the massacres of 1391 that the Jewish community of Tlemcen rose to prominence, welcoming the first Iberian refugees and their rabbinic lineages. MMJMM documents its trajectory.