Spain: Citizenship Plan for Sephardic Jews
The Associated Press, June 6, 2014
Spain’s cabinet on Friday approved a bill allowing descendants of Jews forced into exile centuries ago the right to dual citizenship, but applicants will have to take a Spanish culture test in addition to having their ancient ties to the nation vetted by experts. The plan aims to fix what the government calls the “historic mistake” of sending Sephardic Jews into exile starting in 1492, forcing them to convert to Catholicism or burning them at the stake during the Inquisition. It is expected to pass easily in Parliament because the governing Popular Party has an absolute majority. The measure will allow dual nationality, enabling the newly minted Spaniards to retain their previous citizenship. The term Sephardic means Spanish in Hebrew, but the term has come also to apply to one of the two main variants of Jewish religious practice. The other — and globally dominant one — is Ashkenazic, which applies to Jews whose lineage, in recent times, is traced to Northern and Eastern Europe. There is no accepted figure for the global Sephardic population. Reasonable estimates would range between a fifth and a third of the world’s roughly 13 million Jews.
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