Graetz on the Jews Alliance with Moslems
During the Moorish Conquest of Spain

“The Jews of Africa, who at various times had emigrated thither from Spain, and their unlucky co-religionists of the Peninsula, made common cause with the Mahometan conqueror, Tarik, who brought over from Africa into Andalusia an army eager for the fray. After the battle of Xeres (July, 711), and the death of Roderic, the last of the Visigothic kings, the victorious Arabs pushed onward, and were everywhere supported by the Jews. In every city that they conquered, the Moslem generals were able to leave but a small garrison of their own troops, as they had need of every man for subjection of the country; they therefore confided them to the safekeeping of the Jews. In this manner the Jews, who had but lately been serfs, now became masters of the towns of Cordova, Granada, Malaga, and many others. When Tarik appeared before the capitol, Toledo, he found it occupied by a small garrison only, the nobles and clergy having found safety in flight. While the Christians were in church, praying for the safety of their country and religion, the Jews flung open the gates to the victorious Arabs (Palm Sunday, 712), receiving them with acclamations, and thus avenged themselves for the many miseries which had befallen them in the course of a century since the time of Reccared and Sisebut. The Capital also was entrusted by Tarik to the custody of the Jews, while he pushed on in pursuit of the cowardly Visogoths, who had sought safety in flight, for the purpose of recovering from them the treasure which they had carried off. Finally when Musa Ibn-Nosair, the Governor of Africa, brought a second army into Spain and conquered other cities, he also delivered them into the custody of the Jews.”

— Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, Volume 3, page 109