David Hatchwell, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the law allowing Sephardi Jews and their descendants to apply for instant Spanish citizenship without even having to be resident in the country will not be approved for approximately six to eight months. “There is no need to rush,” he said, as, for the moment there is no official address for requests for a Spanish passport. When the time comes, Hatchwell added, all the information will be made available by the Justice Ministry. In the meantime, the draft bill, the text of which was supplied to the Post by a spokesperson for the Federation, and may be slightly altered in the process of its becoming law, includes the following information. “The draft bill approved today [February 7] highlights the ties of the Sephardi community with Spain since its expulsion in 1492. A symbol of this are the keys that many families still retain of their ancestral homes in Sefarad. They have kept their culture intact, along with their customs and their language, despite the centuries that have passed. “Additionally, it is important to point out their contribution to literature and to law, proof of which are the Legal Codes of King Alfonso 'el Sabio' (the wise), written in their main part by Sephardim at the castle of Monteagudo in Murcia; as well as the contribution of this community in the discovery of America. “The memory and the loyalty of these 'Spaniards without a country' earned them the Prince of Asturias Concordia Prize in 1990. Yet this was not the first example of the existence in Spain of a current favorable to Sephardim. Already in the time of Queen Isabella II (1830-1904) Jews were allowed to own their own cemeteries and open synagogues. “When Fernando de los Rios was a minister, there was talk of giving Spanish citizenship to the Sephardim of Morocco, although this project never developed. Thanks to Praxedes Mareo Sagasta in 1886 and to Senator Angel Pulido in 1900, an initiative to move closer to the Sephardim culminated in an authorization for the opening of synagogues, the founding of the Hispano-Hebrew Alliance in Madrid and of the Universal House of the Sephardim, in 1920. “In 1924 a royal decree was approved in order to offer nationality to the 'formerly protected Spaniards or their descendants and in general to individuals belonging to families of Spanish origin,' in which the Sephardim are not actually named, but which allowed, during World War II, many of them to be saved from the gas chambers, thanks to humanitarian missions carried out by diplomats such as Angel Sanz Briz in Budapest, Sebastian Romero Radigales in Athens, Bernardo Rolland de Miotta in Paris, Julio Palencia in Sofia, Javier Marinez de Bedoya in Lisbon, Jose Rojas in Bucharest and Eduardo Propper de Callejon in Bordeaux.” – M.F.
