Spain Pledged Citizenship to Sephardic Jews. Now They Feel Betrayed.

The former Jewish quarter of Segovia, Spain. The country was once home to one of Europe’s most thriving Jewish communities, which for centuries produced major poets, historians and philosophers. Credit...Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES: In 2015, Spain said it would give citizenship to the descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled during the Spanish Inquisition. Then rejections started pouring in this summer.

MADRID — María Sánchez, a retired mental health therapist in Albuquerque, spent the past four decades tracing her Jewish ancestry from Spain. She created a vast genealogical chart going back nearly 1,100 years, which included three ancestors who were tried in the Spanish Inquisition. Her findings even led her to join a synagogue in the 1980s and to become a practicing Jew.

So when Spain’s government said in 2015 that it would grant citizenship to people of Sephardic Jewish descent — a program publicized as reparations for the expulsion of Jews that began in 1492 — Ms. Sánchez applied. She hired an immigration lawyer, obtained a certificate from her synagogue and flew to Spain to present her genealogy chart to a notary.

Then, in May, she received a rejection letter.

“It felt like a punch in the gut,” said Ms. Sánchez, 60, who was told she had not proved that she was a Sephardic Jew. “You kicked my ancestors out, now you’re doing this again.” » | Nicholas Casey | Saturday, July 24, 2021

Spain: Jews Receive Apology Over Spanish Inquisition Executions
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The leader of Majorca has become the first government official to apologise for the execution of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition – centuries after the events.

Francesc Antich, the regional president of the Balearic Islands, issued an official condemnation of the killings in what was heralded by Jewish groups as the first of its kind in Spain.

"We have dared to gather here to recognise the grave injustice committed against those Majorcans who were accused, persecuted, charged and condemned to death for their faith and their beliefs," Mr Antich said at a memorial service held in Palma de Majorca [Palma].

At the end of the 15th century King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella set up the Spanish Inquisition to root out remnants of Islam and Judaism after the reconquest of Spain. Over the following two centuries thousands of so-called heretics were burned at the stake. » | Fiona Govan, in Madrid | Friday, May 06, 2011

Moors Want Spain to Apologise after 400 Years
Flag of Andalusia courtesy of Google Images.
What Mr Keeley, the writer of this article, fails to point out is that Spain had been invaded and conquered by the Moors, and the Spaniards’ culture and way of life had been taken away from them by the marauding invaders. I see little need for Spaniards today to apologize for anything. This was not so much “ethnic cleansing” as winning back the country which rightfully belonged to them. – ©Mark

TIMESONLINE: It was the start of one of the earliest and most brutal episodes of ethnic cleansing in Europe, so Spain is, understandably perhaps, a little reluctant to mark the occasion.

Four hundred years ago today King Philip III signed an order to expel 300,000 Moriscos - or part-Muslims - who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

Over the next five years hundreds of the exiles died as they were forced from their homes in Spain to North Africa at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.

There are no plans to mark the date officially, although the occasion is being remembered in a series of exhibitions, conferences and public debates.

The anniversary comes days after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, met Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, in Istanbul to celebrate the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations, which is intended to foster friendship between the West and the Islamic world.

Some Muslim writers and Spanish and Moroccan campaigners believe that Madrid should apologise for the wrongs committed during the 17th century. Juan Goytisolo, a Spanish novelist, said:

“Official and academic Spain retires into the fortress of cautious silence, which reveals obvious discomfort. The expulsion was the first European precedent ... of the European ethnic cleansings of the last century.” >>> Graham Keeley in Barcelona | Thursday, April 9, 2009