Sephardic Jews Urge Portugal's President to Do the Right Thing in Nationality Law

A Portuguese Inquisition public sentencing, auto-da-fe, in Lisbon (The National Library of Israel)

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For eight years, the Portuguese Brazilian psychoanalyst has lived in Portugal with her husband, who is a Portuguese citizen, and with whom they have a daughter born in the country. She could apply for nationality through several channels but wanted to do so only through one.

"I want to apply for Portuguese nationality because I am a descendant of Sephardic Jews, as an act of spiritual reconnection and historical reparation. It is not just a legal right, but an ancestral bond with Portugal, a symbolic return to the roots of my ancestors who lived here before the dispersal," said Jordana de Almeida Marsano, who leads the initiative to preserve this route to citizenship, according to Diário de Notícias (October 31).

"Instead of repeal, we ask that they opt for a technical and ethical improvement of the process, preserving the act of justice that dignifies Portugal," said Jordana de Almeida Marsano.

She said that revocation of the amendment would be "unfair".

Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro described the 10-year-old law, which has been made more stringent since then, as something that "has already had its time".

The Portuguese Inquisition lasted 258 years. There were an estimated 40,000 victims, who were executed, tortured, imprisoned or expelled from the Portuguese Empire. Non-Christians were given the opportunity to become New Christians, which many did at the risk of leaving and being forced to leave their children behind, children who would be raised as Christian.

While the Law of Nationality was being debated in the Assembleia da República, a document outlining specific suggested changes to the law was sent to all the represented parties. However, Parliament approved the bill, which also cites stricter rules and longer deadlines for other foreigners for Portuguese citizenship, on October 28.

"It was like watching a door close without dialogue, without the voices which represent that history being heard. It wasn't just a political decision. It was an historical and spiritual injustice."

In order to become law, the Nationality Bill must be signed by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who faces a deadline after he receives the decree unless he requests a review from the Constitutional Court, which he had done with a previous version of the Foreigners' Law. With or without consulting the Court, he has veto power.

"We will ask him to look sensitively at this issue and consider vetoing the repeal (of the article which revokes the possibility of applying for nationality through Sephardic descent)."

Video testimonials are an integral part of the campaign.

"We have gathered support and requests for testimonials which include those of rabbis from the USA, Israel, Brazil and Portugal, as well as local leaders and institutions, including members of the community and the Porto Synagogue, who until recently had a legal process underway related to the issue."

Suggested Changes

The document's specific changes to the law "would allow us to protect the country without erasing the justice of the law".

The document proposes that rigorous genealogical and documentary proof, validated by experts in Jewish history and genealogy, become mandatory; that DNA tests be recognized and capable of tracing Sephardic ancestry with precision; that a cultural link with Portugal be required, such as studies of the Portuguese language, that participation in cultural activities or community ties exists, and that public auditing and transparency of the processes be implemented to guard against potential fraud without harming legitimate descendants.

As a way of making amends, a 2015 amendment to Portugal’s Law on Nationality allowed descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews to become citizens without a residence requirement.

After some notorious cases, where it was reported that people had been granted citizenship through false documents and other misdeeds, a regulation in March 2022 that went into effect in September 2022 decreed that candidates have to prove an “effective connection with Portugal” through ownership of real estate or companies, or through regular trips in an applicant’s life to Portugal. Among cases being investigated was that of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who became a citizen in April 2021.

The document also advocates for the creation of a "permanent Historical-Cultural Council, composed of academics, community leaders and state representatives, to monitor and validate requests."

It also stresses that the change to the law would constitute "a gesture with profound moral and symbolic implications", equivalent to "denying Portugal's responsibility for centuries of persecution" and "would weaken Portugal's image as a modern, just nation reconciled with its past".

The Portuguese Inquisition

In the Portuguese Empire between 1536 and 1794, an estimated 40,000 were victims, according to The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians 1536-1765. There were 1,183 executions, 663 executions in effigy and 29,611 who received penances of self-abasement.

The major target of the Portuguese Inquisition (1536-1821) was New Christians (Jewish converts), predominantly women, who were suspected of secretly practicing Judaism. Some were descendants of Jews who had lived in Portugal for centuries. Others were descendants of Spanish Jews who had fled the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834).

Anyone who was believed to challenge the power structure was at risk. There was a belief, for example, that Jews and Muslims were in league to overthrow the Catholic church.

To a lesser extent, homosexuals, bigamists, and people of other ethnicities and faiths, such as Protestants, Moors and practitioners of African religions and Vodun, were also put on trial for heresy and witchcraft, according to The Jews of Coimbra: From Tolerance to Persecution: Memories and Materiality, a permanent exhibit, in the building of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, at Pátio da Inquisição, in Coimbra, and Paper, Ink, Vodun, and the Inquisition: Tracing Power, Slavery, and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Portuguese Atlantic (June 2020), Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

Coimbra was one of three main tribunals in the country. The others were at Lisbon and Évora. For a short time (1541- c. 1547), there were also courts of the Inquisition in Porto, Tomar and Lamego, according to The Jews of Coimbra exhibit.

“The Coimbra Inquisition logged more than 11,000 cases. About 200 New Christians are said to have been burned to death.”

Many others were sentenced to confiscation of property; or they were pilloried (a wooden frame with holes in which the heads and hands could be locked); quartered (chopped into four pieces); garotted (strangulation with an implement); submitted to the rack (a torture device consisting of a rectangular frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one or both ends. The victim’s ankles are fastened to one roller and the wrists to the other. A handle and ratchet mechanism gradually retract the chains, increasing the strain on the prisoner’s body and causing excruciating pain.); impalement (to torture or kill by fixing on a sharp stake); life imprisonment, or hanging.

According to King João II of Portugal: O Principe Perfeito and the Jews (1481-1495) (2009):

“In Jewish historiography, João II has become infamous for his persecution of the Jews who came to Portugal after their expulsion from Castile in 1492 as well as his order to seize Jewish children from their parents so that they could be converted to Christianity and sent to colonize the island of São Tomé."

The location of São Tomé and Principe -- the nearest settlement was in Gabon 150 miles to the east and named Port Gentil in 1900 – made the islands a crucial trading post of the transatlantic slave trade. The earliest settlers were a significant number of criminals and orphans, but mostly Jews, according to The Expulsion 1492 Chronicles (August 2009). Among them were 2,000 Jewish children, eight years old and younger, who were taken from their parents to ensure that they were raised Christian. They worked on the sugar plantations, according to The Invention of the White Race (1997).

King Manuel I, who reigned from 1495-1521, initially maintained a policy of tolerance toward Jews. He freed the Jews who had been imprisoned by King João II. However, he was engaged to Maria of Aragon and one of the conditions of marriage was to rid the country of heretics. In 1496, he signed the Edict of Expulsion, whose objective was to force Jews and Moors to leave Portugal within 10 months under penalty of death and confiscation of property.

It was decreed that all Jews either convert to Christianity or leave the country without their children, according to The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: International Jewish Folk Traditions (2001).

According to The Jews of Coimbra exhibit:

“This royal statute dictated the future of a population that had resided in Portugal for many centuries. Its consequences were devastating for many of these Portuguese people and for the nation that lost many of its best!"

Passage of the Law

On the passage of the Sephardic Jewish nationality clause:

"I do not want to say this is an historic amendment because I believe that, for this matter, there is no possibility to amend what was done. I would say that it is the attribution of a right," said Minister of Justice Paula Teixeira da Cruz, according to The Times of Israel (January 29, 2015).

The measure was the latest step in Portugal's efforts to atone for its treatment of Jews. An estimated 3,800 Jews live in Portugal, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research compared to 10 percent of the country's population by the end of the 15th century, according to The Jews of Coimbra exhibit.

Currently, Portugal's population is 10.7 million, reported the National Statistics Institute, of which more than 1.5 million are foreign citizens, according to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA).

In 1988, then-president Mário Soares met with members of Portugal's Jewish community and formally apologized for the Inquisition, reported The Times of Israel.

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 São Domingos church, in downtown Lisbon, where a massacre of thousands of Jews began at Easter in 1506.

Who are Sephardic Jews?

“Jerusalem was laid to waste by the conquest and destruction of the Second Temple by Roman Emperor Titus in 70 AD. Jews were forbidden to stay and thus were forced into a long diaspora that was to lead them to the Iberian Peninsula, Sepharad, around the 2nd or 3rd century. The peninsular Jews are therefore called Sephardic Jews, distinguishing them from those who settled in central Europe, the Ashkenazi Jews," according to The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians 1536-1765.