For more than 500 years, Jews were officially barred from living in Spain. Now, the descendants of the Edict of Expulsion of 1492 have been invited to reapply for citizenship. Some 4,500 have accepted the invitation as Spain tries to right one of the most egregious wrongs in Jewish history
For more than 500 years, Jews were officially barred from living in Spain. Now, the descendants of the Edict of Expulsion of 1492 have been invited to reapply for citizenship. Some 4,500 have accepted the invitation as Spain tries to right one of the most egregious wrongs in Jewish history
ing Felipe VI of Spain cannot singlehandedly rectify the wrongs committed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the royal couple who expelled hundreds of thousands of Jews from Spain in 1492.
Nobody can.
Yet the 48-year-old monarch has shown special grace to Spain’s Jewish community since assuming the throne in June 2014 after his father, King Juan Carlos I, abdicated following a 39-year reign.
King Felipe demonstrated that grace last week, mingling freely and conversing for nearly an hour with a visiting Jewish contingent at Madrid’s royal palace. The unusual meeting took place alongside a formal ceremony in which the king accepted the fourth annual Lord Jakobovits Prize from the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) in recognition of a new Spanish law enabling descendants of expelled Jews to reclaim Spanish citizenship.
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