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You see the problem here? Its not simply a matter of the caricature of Christians persecuting Jews. There were complicated dynamics at play, with Kings often at odds with the Pope in these matters, and Pope often sticking up for the rights of those who were being persecuted by mobs or the Crown or whoever.

The "caricature" is largely accurate. No one claims that all Christians persecuted Jews and forced conversos. Most people who are informed recognize that the Popes of the time were, relatively, tolerant towards Jews. Alexander VI, for instance, permitted exiled Spanish Jews to settle in Rome. But this tolerance, of course, had its limits. None of the Popes went to the mat for the Jews, to the point of excommunicating monarchs who persecuted or exiled the People of Israel. Nor did they excommunicate the local priests & bishops were frequently at the front of the mob with a cross in one hand and a torch in the other. And the Inquisition was an official organ of the Church that, without question, mercilessly tortured Jews who'd been forced, often at knife point, to accept baptism.

Anyone who tries to deny or whitewash the suffering of Spanish Jews, from 1300 onward, is on-par with a Holocaust denier.

Well there at least we have a sound basis for historical discussion. Like you said “most people who are informed”....the problem is that many aren’t. I married into a Jewish family. I don’t think a single person knows the basic fact that the Inquisition was an ecclesiastical court with no authority over non-Catholics. Come to think of it, I don’t think a single person on my Catholic side of the family knows it either.

But you are absolutely right..the tolerance had its limits. And if priests and bishops were involved in persecutions, then the boundary between the mob and the Church would have been effectively blurred if not eliminated for the victims of such actions. (Although that article I linked to mentions a case or two where a bishop stopped a rampaging mob.) Also, the abject stupidity of forced Baptisms, contrary to Church law, further made an absolute mess of the whole thing.

It’s complicated. It’s messy. But that’s history. There is no whitewash here. There is an insistence on historical accuracy. But even so, anyone who can’t see the suffering of real people in such a climate has no heart.