Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily in professions such as philosophy, medicine, artisanal pursuits, and farming. The exact number of Jews in Sicily at the time of expulsion is not certain, However, some have put the number of Jewish refugees at 36,000. Also, in 1492, it is known the Jewish populations of Palermo, Messina, and several other cities were considerable, and that there were "Giudeccas", or Jewish settlements, in over 50 places in Sicily, ranging in anywhere population from 350 to 5,000. At their height, Jewish Sicilians probably constituted from five to eight percent of the island's population. Muslims had ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula
History of the Jews in Sicily in Sicily." In the late ancient period the predominantly spoken language of the Jewish (and non-Jewish) population of Sicily has been the Greek language. When Greek was the main language in Jewish inscriptions, as was the case with Jewish inscriptions from Sicily, Greek names, which were locally common, appear in significant numbers in Jewish inscriptions. Still after the Muslim conquest of the island, the use of the Greek language and the ties of the Sicilian Jews to the Byzantine Empire, its economy and its Jewish communities continued to function under the new circumstances. Through these Byzantine(-Jewish) connections, the Synagogue liturgy