After five centuries, Spain will grant Spanish nationality to the descendants of Jews expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella.
History says they left with sorrow, taking with them the keys to their homes, hoping one day to return. Five centuries ago, in 1492, an edict by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain as part of a plan to consolidate the newborn state under the Catholic faith.
The vast majority refused forced conversion to Catholicism and migrated: mainly to Portugal, North Africa, the Balkans and what was then the Ottoman Empire, including present day Turkey. They took with them their language, customs and nostalgia for Sefarad, the Hebrew name for Spain. And some actually kept their keys over the centuries. Now, the descendants of Sephardic Jews unjustly expelled from their homeland can look forward to a form of historical reparation.
On February 7 this year, the Spanish Government announced a bill that will enable their descendants, Jewish or not, to obtain Spanish citizenship without giving up their present nationality. Spain’s Minister of Justice Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon assigns a “deep historic meaning” to the gesture, compensation for a shameful event.
The initiative, which still must receive final parliamentary approval, likely within the year, has provoked a flurry of interest in Israel and in other countries with Sephardic populations.
It is estimated that there are 3,5 million Sephardim in the world, out of a global population of 14 million Jews. Most live in Israel, France and Turkey, but also in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the US. Spanish embassies and consulates in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ankara, Istanbul and Athens have received hundreds of enquiries by phone or e-mail from people claiming Sephardic roots. “The decision of the Ministry of Justice to offer Spanish nationality to the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 is an important gesture by the Spanish Government and a way of repairing an historic mistake and injustice, as prescribed by the guidelines first set by His Majesty King Juan Carlos in 1992,” says Isaac Querub, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE), which represents roughly 40,000 Spanish Jews.
Over the course of 522 years, further expulsions, wars and finally the Holocaust,have made it difficult for many Jewish families to document their origins. In fact, Jews fleeing Spain in 1492 were initially granted asylum in Portugal, only to be expelled from there five years later. Now Portugal intends to grant these families Portuguese citizenship too. The bill, which would amend article 23 of the Spanish Civil Code, offers automatic Spanish nationality to “Sephardic foreign citizens who can prove their condition and their special link with our country, even if they are not legally resident in Spain and regardless of their ideology, religion or beliefs.”
Sephardim already benefit from a preferential naturalization procedure requiring only two years of legal residence in Spain before claiming citizenship. With the new law the process should be faster, and those applying will not be required to give up their current passport. The draft also cites a number of ways by which applicants can document their origins: by having a Sephardic surname, evidence of belonging to the Sephardic community, or as speakers of Ladino, a rare form of medieval Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews. In spite of the treatment inflicted on the Sephardim, they bore few ill feelings. In Ladino literature there is a great deal of nostalgia, but not a single word against Spain or Spaniards; victims blamed the Inquisition, the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown, but not the Spanish people. During much of the 12th and part of the 13th centuries, Spanish Jews enjoyed a collaborative atmosphere in the Iberian Peninsula, where they got along well with the Christians and Moslem communities. Art and science flourished when the three faiths worked together.
By 1492 this cosmopolitan mood had changed. Seeking to stabilize the country following the union by marriage of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as well as the retaking of Granada from the Arabs, the Catholic sovereigns Isabella and Ferdinand issued the edict of expulsion. Some of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Jews then living in Spain converted to Catholicism and remained, but the majority emigrated. Now their descendants have been given a way back to Europe. Among motivations cited by those calling the FCJE for information, some claim a sentimental attraction, but others have practical issues in mind: in a country like Israel, surrounded by hostile neighbours, a second nationality can come in handy. The Spanish initiative means those entitled will automatically secure a European Union passport.
“This measure, which still has to be converted into law, may have other aspects to it, such as the protection of Sephardim in danger, something quite a few Spanish diplomats were involved in during World War II – says Isaac Querub, President of the FCJE – It could also facilitate an influx of talent and business acumen.” In Israel, the wave of interest has also been fueled by the publication in the Israeli media of an unofficial list of 5,200 Sephardic surnames: such as Abarbanel, Medina, Amsalem, Toledano, Najmias, Saban or Moreno. The issue has become part of the usual exchange of jokes between the Ashkenazim(Jews from Central and Eastern Europe) and the Sephardim.
Many Ashkenazi Israelis have a second passport, usually German or Polish. “Now equality is restored – jokes humorist Nadav Abukasis – even those of us that hail from North Africa have a place to flee to during the next war.”
After five centuries, Spain will grant Spanish nationality to the descendants of Jews expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella.
