History of the Jews in the Balearic Islands History of the Jews in the Balearic Islands The history of the Jews in the Balearic Islands goes back more than a thousand years. Jews have lived in the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, belonging to Spain. These are situated to the east of Valencia, the three principal of which are named Majorca (Spanish, Mallorca), Minorca (Menorca), and Eivissa or Ibiza. The group first formed the Kingdom of Majorca; later it became a Spanish province under the domination of Aragon. According to the chroniclers, there were Jewish inhabitants in the Balearic Isles as early as the 2nd century. In the
Balearic Islands islands. Catalan is designated as a "llengua pròpia", literally "own language" in its statute of autonomy. The Balearic dialect features several differences from standard Catalan. Practically all residents of the Balearic Islands speak Spanish fluently. In 2003 74.6% of the Islands' residents also knew how to speak Catalan and 93.1% could understand it. Other languages, such as English, German, French and Italian, are often spoken by locals, especially those who work in the tourism industry. Circa 2017 there were 1,115,999 residents of the Balearics; 16.7% of the islands' population were foreign (non-Spanish). At that time the islands had 23,919 Moroccans,