Pulitzer Center Article: Spain Rights the Wrong of Jewish Exile?

Hello, friends!

http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/spain-rights-wrong-Jewish-exile-Sephardic-1492

For those who are not aware, I was invited to participate in a small journalism seminar this year at my college. It had just eight students, and we met about one weekend a month since September with two journalists for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to write a journalism piece on a topic we picked ourselves. The link above takes you to the finished article.

My topic, for a change, was antisemitism in Spain (topic of my honors thesis this year, 7-week summer project I did back in 2011, basically the only thing I talk about...). But that was not specific enough for a journalism audience, so, fortuitously, when the Spanish government announced in November that they would change the rules to make it easier for Sephardic Jews to gain Spanish citizenship, my topic became focused on that.

Under the new rules, if you can prove that you are a Sephardic Jew, even if you and your family has not lived in Spain for centuries, you can apply for and gain citizenship. Without any kind of residency requirement! Hard to believe, I do not think this is a usual development in today's day and age. This action is meant as a move towards reconciliation for the 1492 Edict of Expulsion, which kicked all of the Jews out of Spain (and led to the burning alive of some Jews who tried to stay in the country as fake-Catholics aka secret Jews). Technically, Jews were not legally allowed to live in Spain from 1492-1968. Can you imagine? 1968 is not that long ago...

Anyway, they posted the article just the other day! I am not going to re-post the whole thing here (it ended up being quite long...) but please take a look if you're interested. I would love to hear any opinions in the comments below!

http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/spain-rights-wrong-Jewish-exile-Sephardic-1492

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson