Returning to the Jewish Past in Spain and Portugal

In 2015, both Portugal and Spain passed laws enabling descendants of Sephardi Jews to obtain citizenship, an historic offer of reconciliation. Drawing from scholarly and first-person essays, Reparative Citizenship for Sephardi Descendants analyzes the memory and afterlives of those who were wronged, and how reconciliatory rights impact the lives of those affected.

In 2015, both Portugal and Spain passed laws enabling descendants of Sephardi Jews to obtain citizenship, an historic offer of reconciliation for Jews who were forced to undergo conversions or expelled from Iberia nearly half a millennia ago. Drawing on the memory of the expulsion from Sepharad, the scholarly and personal essays in Reparative Citizenship for Sephardi Descendants analyze the impact of reconciliation laws on descendants and contemporary forms of citizenship.