The Mobylette has been an icon of rural Mallorca, which over time we have stopped to hear its loud clang, across the paths and secondary roads on the island. Gradually, we stopped to see those men and women of a certain age, on this kind of reinforced bike with a little and distinctive 49 cc engine. It was used to go from the village to the little farm, with a basked hanging and a box at the rear loaded with the earth fruits or some tools. Going back further in time, in addition to what we have explained, we would see a man and a woman riding on the same Mobylette. A practice removed by traffic regulations, or for mercy of their little engines. Later came those older men and woman with a helmet, which they wouldn’t take off, even when got down the Mobylette. Until in 2003, the European environmental laws prevented the production of its small engine, because it was too polluting. Who would have imaged, that this successful French invention of 1949, after been manufactured more than 30 million units, would end like that, banned, unsuited to the new times.

Behind this bucolic image was hiding a much harder social reality, illiteracy. People who until a few years ago have been riding a Mobykette, often was because they couldn’t even read, which precluded them from driving a car. Because one of the many advantages of the Mobylette, was that to ride it just was required to be older than 14 years old. Today, illiteracy among older people in Mallorca, is almost anecdotal and if anyone can’t pass the driving test, no longer rides a Mobylette but a micro-car.

The answer to the title question, might be to Tunisia or Morocco, where environmental regulations are less severe and still being manufactured. So, if you want to see a brand new Mobylette, you already know were to go.

The history of the converted Jews, is one of the darkest and surprising chapters in the history of Mallorca. Surprising, because an event taking place in the fifteenth century, led to the discrimination and stigmatization of a group in the mallorcan society, until mid-twentieth century.

In 1435 Mallorca´s Jews were forced to convert to Christianity, and this was the year in which Judaism formally ended on the island. The fact that these conversions didn’t respond to a religious belief, paved the way for these new converts to continue secretly with the practices of the Jewish religion. For this reason, they were pursued by the Spanish Inquisition with more or less intensity over the next centuries.

It is not until the end of the seventeenth century that we can begin to talk about the xuetes, also called xuetons, as the Mallorcans descendants of Jewish converted to Christianity, who at the end of the seventeenth century were prosecuted and sentenced by the Inquisition, for having practised the Jewish faith, which also carried one of the fifteen names considered by the rest of the island descendants from Jews. Paradoxically, in Mallorca has been proved the existence of more than two hundred names of Jewish descent, but only the holders of these fifteen names suffered social rejection. Specifically these family manes are: Aguiló, Bonnín, Cortès, Forteza, Fuster, Martí, Miró, Picó, Pinya, Pomar, Segura, Valls, Valentí, Valleriola and Tarongí.

The xuetes in Mallorca have formed a discriminated social group, forced inbreeding to the point that it has been demonstrated their genetic differentiation, compared to the rest of Mallorca. In addition, the vast majority of them have lived in the vicinity of the Carrer del Segell in Palma, today with the name of Jaume II in the old quarter of the city. They have identified themselves as people from the carrer (street in Catalan), referring to the street mentioned above, as the words xueta or xueto are considered offensive, synonymous with greedy in the colloquial Catalan of Mallorca. Despite its indisputable Catholicism, the church itself discriminated them until the twentieth century. In fact, they were forced into professions for wish they were accepted as traders and jewellers, which in many cases let them to enjoy a good economic situation.

The reasons for this social rejection are difficult to understand, but returning to the convictions of the Inquisition to the practitioners of the banned faith, in the seventeenth century. Among other penalties, which at least had to stay for two generations of convicts family members, was the ban on holding public office, become priests or marry people who were not xuetes. Apparently the habit, within the small society of Mallorca, led to these sentences to be kept far beyond what it had been stipulated.

Currently it can be said that the xueta issue in Mallorca is over, and discrimination is already part of the past. A very recent past, that has not prevented the emergence of associations dedicated to the recovery of the memory and legacy of the Jews in Mallorca.