Spain has recently granted citizenship to 4,302 people whose Jewish ancestors were expelled five centuries ago during the Inquisition...
This takes us back to a period in Spanish history when Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the world. This period ended definitively with the anti-Jewish riots of 1392 and the Alhambra decree of 1492, as a result of which the majority of Jews in Spain (between 200,000 and 250,000) converted to Catholicism and those remaining (between 40,000 and 100,000) were forced into exile.
However, for hundreds of years Spain, or rather what would be Spain one day (most of the Iberian peninsula) was a peaceful place were the different religious creeds found tolerance. Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in the space of the same city. There were differences, for sure, but no enmity among them. This permitted each of these cultures to leave a legacy in what we know as the Spanish gastronomy or mediterranean diet, one of the most varied diets in the world.
In the year that Al-Andalus Muslims were expelled the Jews fared no better and they had to leave Sefarad (the Hebrew name for Spain) and their homes as well. This was all because the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella) were rather fundamentalist and hence intolerant when it came to religion. Ferdinand and Isabella decided that they wanted the whole Iberian Peninsula to be Christian which meant that there had to be a change. Hence Muslims and Jews were given a choice: convert or get out.
It is important to note that gastronomy in the Hebrew tradition is much related to their religious activities and celebrations, as well as rules and prohibitions. We know that the Jews in Spain were generally wealthy, and some of their gastronomic traditions shocked people from other religions and social stratums, for instance preparing separately and never mixing milk and meat (some even had two kitchens to prepare them apart).
The Coran and the Torah both forbid the consumption of pork thousands of years before due to a parasitic disease: trichinosis; so they consumed other meats, lamb was the chief among them, since to them it was the most sacred animal. The prohibitions were more related to how the products were mixed rather than actual ingredients, save for pork.
Some historians claim is not really possible to speak about a Sephardic gastronomy specifically, since basically it was kosher tradition adapted to the region were they lived: kosher must be respected, yet the recipes varied according to availability of ingredients. However a lot of the typical Spanish food recipes have undoubtedly Sephardic (or Jewish) influence.