ALCOLEA ():

By: Meyer Kayserling

City in the province of Jaen, Andalusia, the Jewish congregation of which, like many others of the country, enjoyed special privileges. According to the records of the congregation, a standing committee composed of twelve members was selected, whose duty it was to tax the members in accordance with their financial ability, a procedure which caused frequent quarrels and divisions. Any one who obtained remission of his taxes from the governor or prince was at once placed under the congregation's ban for a year. It appears that the Jews in Alcolea were of such overthrifty disposition that they at one time insisted that their cantor (synagogue-reader) should likewise be taxed toward the congregational expenses and even the payment of old congregational debts. The matter came to a lawsuit. In the earlier part of the year 1414 the small Jewish community of Alcolea accepted baptism. This wholesale conversion was but an episode in the triumphal evangelizing march of Vincente Ferrer.

M. K.