History of Hebron

Early Ottoman rule

The expansion of the Ottoman Empire along the southern Mediterranean coast under sultan Selim I coincided with the establishment of Inquisition commissions by the Catholic Monarchs in Spain, which ended centuries of the Iberian convivencia (coexistence). The ensuing expulsions of the Jews drove many Sephardi Jews into the Ottoman provinces, and a slow influx of Jews to the Holy Land took place, with some notable Sephardi kabbalists settling in Hebron. Over the following two centuries, Bedouin tribal groups moved to Hebron from Transjordan, settling in three separate villages in the Wādī al Khalīl, and their descendants form the majority of the present day Palestinian population of the city.

The Jewish community fluctuated between 8-10 families throughout the 16th century, and suffered from severe financial straits in the first half of the century. In 1540, renowned kabbalist Malkiel Ashkenazi bought a courtyard from the small Karaite community, in which he established the Sephardi Abraham Avinu Synagogue. In 1659, Abraham Pereyra of Amsterdam founded the Hesed Le'Abraham yeshiva in Hebron which attracted many students. In the early 18th-century, the Jewish community suffered from heavy debts, almost quadrupling from 1717 to 1729, and were "almost crushed" from the extortion practiced by the Turkish pashas. In 1773 or 1775, a large/substantial amount of money was extorted from the Jewish community, who paid up to avert a threatened catastrophe, after a false allegation was made accusing them of having murdered the son of a local sheikh and throwing his body into a cesspit. Emissaries from the community were frequently sent overseas to solicit funds, but often money