Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on January 30, 2015

Five centuries after burning thousands of Jews at the stake, forcing them to convert to Christianity or expelling them, Portugal is granting citizenship rights to their descendants as part of an attempt to make amends.

The Portuguese Cabinet on Thursday approved a law offering dual citizenship to the descendants of those Sephardic Jews the term commonly used for those who once lived in the Iberian peninsula.

The effective date of the law will be made public soon and similar legislation in Spain is awaiting final legislative approval.

The Portuguese rights will apply to those who can demonstrate "a traditional connection" to Portuguese Sephardic Jews, such as through "family names, family language, and direct or collateral ancestry."

Like Spain, Portugal says its sole reason for granting citizenship is to redress a historic wrong.

"There is no possibility to amend what was done," Portuguese Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz said. "I would say it is the attribution of a right."

The measure is the latest step in Portugal's modern efforts to atone for its past harsh treatment of Jews, whose ranks once numbered in the tens of thousands, but have been reduced to only about 1,000 today.

In 1988, then-president Mario Soares met with members of Portugal's Jewish community and formally apologized for the Inquisition. In 2000, the leader of Portugal's Roman Catholics publicly apologized for the suffering imposed on Jews by the Catholic Church, and in 2008 a monument to the dead was erected outside the Sao Domingos church where the massacre of thousands of Jews began at Easter in 1506.

Jose Ribeiro e Castro, a lawmaker who was involved in drafting the legislation, sees the persecution of Sephardic Jews as a "stain" on Portuguese history.

He said he was contacted on social media by Sephardic Jews abroad who suggested granting citizenship rights to descendants of their persecuted ancestors.

Read more here:

Portugal Approves Citizenship Plan for Sephardic Jews ...

Category: Sephardic
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