French Writer Pierre Assouline Reclaims Spanish Citizenship, Urges Repeal of 1492 Expulsion Decree

In an open letter published in El País, the French writer and journalist Pierre Assouline recounts his story. It took five years of administrative procedures for this native of Casablanca to become Spanish again. The passing of the so-called "granting of Spanish nationality to Sephardic Jews of Spanish origin" law in 2015 had allowed this Sephardic Jew to fight to regain his Spanish nationality. An action by the Spanish parliament, Las Cortes, to repair a historical injustice. This law gives the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain the opportunity to become Spanish again.

The reconquest of the Spanish territory by the Catholic kings had turned the lives of the Jews of Spain upside down. In March 1492, the "Alhambra Decree" ordered the Jews to leave the Spanish territory within four months. This is how between 100 and 200,000 Jews had left the peninsula. Some had settled in Portugal and the Netherlands, while others had taken refuge in Morocco or the Ottoman Empire.

The Alhambra Decree was applied until the mid-19th century, which marked the establishment of religious freedom in Spain. With the 2015 law, the country has rid itself of a painful past. Out of nearly 150,000 Sephardic Jews around the world applying to regain Spanish nationality, only 15,300 have been able to obtain it. The Spanish administration is currently studying 25,483 files.

Pierre Assouline is one of those who obtained his Spanish passport, but he wants even more. The Sephardic Jew calls on the King of Spain, Felipe VI, to definitively repeal the Alhambra Decree of 1492. "Only a king can undo what another king has done," he wrote in his letter. "This gesture would have a simply symbolic meaning [...] but we have been waiting for it for centuries," adds the writer.