Jewish groups protested on Monday after a Spanish reggae festival canceled a concert by an American Jewish musician when he failed to reply to a demand to clarify his position on Palestinian statehood. Matisyahu, who fuses reggae, hip-hop and rock with Jewish influences in his songs, had been due to perform next Saturday at the…
The Madrid alderman for culture under fire for posting a joke about the Holocaust on Twitter four years ago has resigned. Guillermo Zapata resigned Monday after opposition parties and the umbrella group for Jewish communities in Spain demanded he step down, the Spanish daily El Pais reported. Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena, who took office on…
Spain’s lower house gave final approval to a law offering citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews. Under the law approved Thursday, the Spanish daily El Pais reported, applicants are able to apply without traveling to Spain, as proposed in previous amendments which did not pass, but are required to hire a Spanish notary and pass…
Spain’s Congress is poised to vote on final amendments that would make it possible for descendants of Sephardic Jews to apply for citizenship. The Congress of Deputies is scheduled to vote on the amendments on June 11, according to a statement published on the Congress’ website on Monday. Under the amendments, approved by the Spanish…
Spain’s embassy in Ankara disputed a New York Times article claiming that thousands of Turkish Jews have applied for Spanish citizenship amid growing concern about anti-Semitism. The May 26 Times article speaks of “thousands of Sephardic Jews in Turkey who trace their ancestry to Spain and are now applying for Spanish citizenship in anticipation of…
Members of a suspected militant Islamist cell arrested this week in Spain were trying to obtain explosives to bomb a Jewish bookshop in Barcelona, an investigating magistrate said on Friday. Other potential targets of the group included synagogues and public buildings in the Catalonia region, the magistrate said in a report after receiving information from…
(JTA) — Hunched over a monument for thousands of Jews killed in a 1506 massacre in Lisbon, Danielle Karo (not her real name) felt a swelling in her eyes. To Karo, an American poet and business analyst who is descended from one of Sephardic Jewry’s greatest sages, the massacre is not just ancient history. It…
The Spanish government is inching closer to providing an expedited path to citizenship for Sephardic Jews. The initiative, first proposed in November 2012, is expected to clear a major hurdle today, as the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported it would pass the lower house of the Spanish parliament. It must still be passed by the…
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