Amalya Feldman

This dissertation examines the use of small, interconnected urban spaces by Jewish and converso communities in late medieval and early modern Mallorca to navigate their identities under shifting political, social, and religious pressures. Focusing on everyday spaces–homes, marketplaces, ports–this study reveals how these marginalized groups adapted and preserved cultural identity through spatial networks that fostered resilience and facilitated communal practices. By analyzing architectural records and archival sources through the lenses of urban porosity and liminality, this research traces the role of urban spaces in shaping social memory and cultural identity. Each chapter focuses on a critical historical juncture to demonstrate how physical spaces served as sites of adaptation, memory, control, and subversion. This interdisciplinary approach offers an alternative to the monolithic views of urban coexistence dominating studies of Iberian Jewish architecture and history, as well as a new model for understanding marginalized groups’ spatial practices and social legacies.