Interpellating Sephardic Identities in Spain and Portugal: Multiple Agendas in the Twenty-First Century

In 2013, both the Spanish and Portuguese governments passed amendments to their respective laws of nationality. Two years later, the finally approved laws should allow descendants of Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497 to become citizens of one of the Iberian states if they give proof of belonging to a Sephardic community of Portuguese or Spanish origin (Consessão da Nacionalidade Portuguesa para Judeus Sefarditas, Decreto Lei No. 30-A/2015; Ley 12/15 para Conseción de Nacionalidad a los Sefardíes Originarios de España, BOE, 151- 52557). Given the enormous interest of thousands of individuals and families from different parts of the world, particularly from Israel, to meet the requirements for application, the Portuguese and Spanish governments are providing different redefinitions of the criteria necessary to obtain nationality.

Taking into account the analysis of similar measures passed in Portugal in 1913 and in Spain in 1924; the critical reading of the present Portuguese and Spanish Laws laws and the debate they have set loose, and last but not least, fieldwork being carried out in Israel during 2015-2016, this paper discusses three of the multiple agendas that the laws have triggered: a. the modes of “interpellation” and the contested interests of the States in retaining the authority to define (Sephardic) collective identities; b. the rise of intermediary agencies, non-profit organizations and communitarian institutions that mediate between the States and the applicants and, c. the reception of the laws in Israeli society.