31 JULYThe last day by which the Jews had to leave was Tisha Be-Av, 31 July. Rav Yitzchak Abarbanel, financier and adviser to the Spanish monarchy, who left the country with thousands of his fellow Jews, testified that: When the King of Spain decreed the expulsion against all the Jews in his kingdom, the date of expulsion was set at the end of three months from the day when the decree was proclaimed. It turned out that the day set for the departure of the Jews from Spain was the ninth of Av. But the King did not know the character of the day when he issued his edict. It was as if he had been led from above to fix this time.[1] Throughout the centuries, Jews have been expelled from dozens of countries all over the world. During the 12th-16th centuries, many European countries expelled their Jewish communities. France threw them out several times — in 1182, 1254, 1306, 1322, 1359 and 1394. In 1290 it was the turn of the Jews of England and in 1360 the Hungarian Jews. The list goes on and on, and it includes Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. However, it is the expulsion from Spain (to be followed a few years later by Portugal) which is considered until this very day the most horrific and most tragic of all expulsions. The following passage describes some of the reasons for this statement: When the Jews, crushed and subdued, were driven out of Spain in 1492, they had been living there for over a millennium. The greatest, most affluent and most civilized Jewish community in the world, and certainly the proudest. The Spanish Expulsion was their direst national calamity in fourteen centuries, comparable in popular memory only to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. It was the summer of 1492, the same year Columbus landed in what today we call America...[2] Those who did not convert to Christianity set out on a long and challenging journey, leaving their homes, possessions and businesses behind. Many died of hunger and exhaustion. The estimated numbers of this horrific tragedy were high. Over 200,000 Jews converted against their will to Christianity and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. Many of the Jews made their way to the neighboring country of Portugal, only to be expelled from there in 1496.