Itongadol/AJN.- Spain\’s Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon says Spain owes Sephardic community a debt for spreading the Spanish language and culture.
Reports that Spain had passed legislation granting citizenship to Sephardic Jews residing anywhere in the world were premature, representatives of the Spanish Jewish community told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
It was reported on Friday that the Spanish government had approved a law allowing descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the country in 1492 to seek Spanish nationality without giving up their current citizenship.
“The law we’ve passed today has a deep historic meaning: not only because it concerns events in our past of which we should not be proud, like the decree to expel the Jews in 1492, but because it reflects the reality of Spain as an open and plural society,” Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon was reported as saying.
The minister also asserted that his nation owned the Sephardic community a debt for spreading the Spanish language and culture around the world. The word Sephardic comes from Sefarad, Hebrew for Spain.
However, Friday saw not the passage of a new law but rather the approval of a draft bill that the government hopes to see passed by the legislature.
A spokeswoman for the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain told the Post that she believed it was “very important that the media get the story right in order to avoid a run on consuls around the world by people seeking Spanish nationality.”
Friday’s draft has to be presented to Congress and then to the Senate and then back to Congress. The text may also be modified during this process, which is expected to take several months, she added.
There are several ways in which a prospective citizen may prove Jewish identity, she added, reading from a draft copy of the bill obtained by the Federation and passed on to the Post.
An applicant will be required to present a certificate either from the Federation or from a recognized rabbinical body overseas.
“People who speak Ladino [Judeo-Spanish] will also be considered, and those who have Sephardi last names [will be accepted; however] how the list will be compiled and which names will appear on it is at present a complicated challenge, and any lists that have been published so far, claiming to be official, are not,” the spokeswoman said.