During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance in Spain, military service was a common occupation for Jews. This may have been due in part to restrictions against Jews from pursuing certain professions, and the requirement of baptism to join guilds. So, they chose to become soldiers and mariners. They were frequently the intelligencers, but more often were navigators, preparing maps and nautical tables, and inventing instruments. 15th Century cartography was almost entirely in the hands of Jews. The Portuguese Armada that captured Mauritania in 1415 had many Jews.

However, the reign of terror by the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 by the Alhambra Degree changed everything. As thousands of Sephardic Jews fled Spain and Portugal, some became conversos and sailed to the New World (and became pirates there). However, others scattered across North Africa, Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans. Some channeled their outrage and sense of betrayal by joining with Barbary corsairs to seek justice and restitution by attacking Spanish ships and ports throughout the Mediterranean. A few gained notoriety, rising to positions of leadership. But they were by no means the exception. Ottoman and Barbary corsair ships were well populated with Sephardic Jews seeking pay-back for the losses suffered by the Inquisition and expulsion.

The English State Papers of 1533 describe a report to the Genoese prince Andria Doria about the activities of a Jewish pirate, Coron, terrorizing the Mediterranean with a strong fleet. There are several cases of Jews who upon fleeing Iberia turned to attacking the Empire’s shipping, a profitable strategy of revenge for the Inquisition’s religious persecution.

Ciphut Sinan – Ottoman sources are generally silent about his origins; most modern works assert that he was born to a Sephardic Jewish family which fled Spain or Portugal and relocated to the then Ottoman ruled Smyrna. Based out of Mediterranean points including Santorini, he fought in several key battles against the Spanish and the Holy Roman Empire. In 1538, he helped destroy most of Spain’s naval fleet off the port of Preveza, Greece. (The flag Sinan displayed on his ship featured a six-pointed star called the Seal of Solomon) He was second in command to Barbarossa, earning the moniker “the Great Jew”.

Samuel Pallache – born in Fez, Morocco to a rabbinic family, he was a Jewish merchant, diplomat and pirate who became an envoy to the Dutch Republic in 1608. Befriending the Dutch Crown Prince Maurice, he was commissioned as a privateer. He served under a Netherlands flag and with Dutch letters of marque and recruited Marranos for his crews. He helped found the Jewish community of Amsterdam.