Madrid – Spain has announced measures to speed up the naturalization of Jews of Sephardic descent whose ancestors fled the Iberian peninsula more than five centuries ago when they were told to convert to Christianity or go into exile.
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Sephardi Jews have had the option of seeking Spanish naturalization for decades. The change announced Thursday gives them special status and sets up a process for their ancestry to be vetted by the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities and forwarded to authorities for approval.
The federation says thousands of Sephardi Jews around the world could benefit, particularly those living in Latin America and Turkey.
Many Sephardi Jews fled to places like Istanbul, London and Cairo after the 1492 decree. Others who didn’t convert were killed during the Inquisition.
Let’s not forget about all the ashkenazim who are originally sphardic, but changed when they arrived in poland etc
so they need some people to kickstart their economy, oh bring the Jews in, no worries, we can get rid of them once we don’t need them anymore, that’s the cycle, why would anyone want to move to spain nowadays anyways?
A Sephardi from Latin America has no automatic right of residence in Spain, whilst any Ashkenazi from Lithuania to Germany to Hungary can move to Spain without restriction because of free movement in the European Union.
This might cost some seats for Shas in the upcoming elections.
With the unstable conditions in israel many sfardim will take advantage of this opportunity and move back to spain