On Feb.7, the Spanish government announced it will offer citizenship to Sephardi Jews around the world whose ancestors were expelled from Spain during the Inquisition. Spain’s justice minister, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, disclosed that legislation enshrining this historic decision will be passed within months, if not weeks.
More than 500 years after tens of thousands of Jews were disgracefully forced out of Spain by the Alhambra Decree, issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and 22 years after King Juan Carlos promised to recognize the “injustices of the past,” Spain is belatedly coming to terms with its painful past.
It’s an important moment in modern Spanish history.
“What the law will do, five centuries later, is to make amends for a terrible historic mistake, one of the worst that Spaniards ever made,” said Ruiz-Gallardon, whose great-grandfather, the Spanish ambassador to Romania, saved Jews during the Holocaust.
Calling the descendants of the expellees the “children of Spain,” he said the proposed new law can be taken as an apology by Spain to the Jewish people.
Jews who can prove their Spanish ancestry and possess a knowledge of Ladino will be eligible for Spanish citizenship. Under the legislation, Jews who accept Spanish citizenship will be able to retain the citizenship they currently hold, a privilege that, until now, has been granted only to people of Spanish origin in Latin America.
The law under consideration is far more sweeping than a 1924 measure that granted discretionary powers to the government to award Sephardi Jews Spanish nationality. It will apply to at least several hundred thousand Jews, mainly living in Israel.
Once they acquire Spanish citizenship and a Spanish passport, they will be entitled to live, study and work in the European Union, a prospect that many will find enticing and rewarding.
With this legislation, Spain is taking a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done to right the wrongs of 1492.
Like Germany, which has honorably atoned for Nazi crimes against humanity, Spain should pay compensation for properties seized from the Jewish community. No one expects individuals to be compensated, since proof of ownership will probably be extremely difficult to establish after all these centuries. But such funds can and should be channelled to Jewish charitable and educational institutions in Spain and in countries where Sephardi Jews presently reside.
If true justice is to be done, Spain should seriously consider this idea.