Jews have lived in what is now Turkey for 2400 years. The present size of the Jewish community is estimated at 24,000 of which about 2,500 live in Izmir. Historically speaking Antisemitism was rarer in the Ottoman Empire and Anatolia than in Europe. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal, Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II issued a formal invitation to Jews and they started arriving to the empire in great numbers. In 1492, more than 150,000 Spanish Jews fled the Spanish Inquisition to the Ottoman Empire.