A combination of factors contributed to the decline of Spanish-Jewish culture. Many of the sophisticated peoples of the Jewish community had already begun to doubt the Judaistic faith simply by adopting intellectually philosophical beliefs that discredited their religion. As was said in this article, “those who read a few columns in a book of Greek philosophy will soon tear the Torah scroll to pieces.” (Alami, pg. 117) Although ancient philosophy contributed to the decline of Judaism, it was not as common as others that had appealed to the general masses. Another reason for the cause of the decline of Jewish culture is because most of the Spanish philosophers are Christians and were extremely intolerant towards the Jewish people. Frequent riots aimed at targeting, killing, or forcibly converting individuals of the Jewish faith had occurred throughout the country. The environment of Spain for the Jewish people was certainly not safe. To avoid the violent acts of the country's Christian citizens, many Jews converted to Christianity for the protection it provided. Not only did the Spanish citizens repress people of the Jewish faith, but the Spanish authorities probably had the greatest impact in the decline of Jewish culture. In particular, a man named Vincent Ferrer was a leader of the Spanish community in forcing the conversion of Jews to Christianity. He was known to be responsible for creating the Laws of Valladolid, a set of laws created to significantly suppress people of the Jewish faith. This had caused many Jews to lose their homes, careers and forced them to pay much higher taxes than Christians and had caused death... middle of paper... until others who practiced Judaism confessed and they were then sentenced to a severely tortuous sentence, or were put to death. Although the violent mobs and harsh repression were very harsh on the Spanish Jews, the Spanish Inquisition was certainly the causal factor in the expulsion of the Jews in Spain. The worst violent act in the Spanish Inquisition is not the many mechanisms used to torture innocents as bad as that is. But it is that during an execution, thousands of Christian peasants from the city and the countryside gathered to celebrate and make a spectacle of the death of innocent people. The fact that thousands of people have enjoyed and approved of the death of people just because they practice a different religion is more heartbreaking than any torture device that could be manifested because it shows how dark the mass of humanity can be if we let it..