Portuguese Citizenship by Sephardic Origins
Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain or forced to convert to Catholicism from 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs.
Portuguese nationality can be granted to descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, who after leaving Portugal, due to religious persecution (1496-1821), maintained links with typically Portuguese "organized communities", such as those that existed in Thessaloniki and Smyrna before being decimated by the Shoah (KK Portugal, KK Portugal Velho, KK Lisboa, KK Évora, etc.); or had links with the Spanish and Portuguese synagogues in London, Amsterdam, Curaçau, Suriname, etc.; to applicants whose families once left the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) and for centuries have been integrated into Portuguese and Spanish communities, commonly known as "Sephardim" (Turkey, Greece, former Yugoslavia, Morocco, etc.), plagued with marriages between Jews of Portuguese origin and Jews of Spanish origin who used the Ladino language (a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish with local languages): and to all those descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews who, after leaving Portugal, due to religious persecution, traveled in everywhere, whether in an organized way or not.
By law, Spain wanted to repair a historical damage. “Portugal is the option for all those people who could not complete the Spanish nationality process and are interested in having a European passport, as long as they can prove Sephardic origin More than 132,000 people of different nationalities, mostly from Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, Peru, Chile have applied to obtain the benefit.
Some of the benefits obtained from the Portuguese passport:
Free movement within the European Union.
Travel, study or work in any of the 28 countries of the European Union.
Access to European rights (participation in political life, pension, social security, among others). It does not oblige you to renounce the nationality of origin (it maintains the rights of your country of origin or residence).
As Portuguese, it is not required to obtain a visa to enter 83 countries.
On February 27, 2015, the Portuguese government published Decree-Law No. 30-A / 2015, which empowers all those who prove to have Sephardic ancestry, the processing of Portuguese nationality regardless of whether they are currently or not.
Portuguese territory The application for Portuguese nationality due to Sephardic origin is simpler and differs from the Spanish nationality process in that:
-Portuguese law does not require the applicant to speak or know the Portuguese language and does not require a language or culture test.
-The person is not required to travel to Portugal to sign the act of notoriety, since the law allows a proxy to be appointed for the signature.
-The law does not have an expiration date, which implies that people will be able to carry out this procedure whenever they want without additional worries due to the limitation of time.
-The law does not grant citizenship to minor children who were born before the Sephardic father or mother obtained Portuguese nationality.
-How do you know if someone is descended from Sephardic originating in Portugal? The first thing to keep in mind is that the designation of "Sephardic Jew" refers to the Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal and Spain.
The name Sefarad means "Hispania". Portugal was a country of large Jewish communities. In 1492, when Sephardic Jews were given three months to leave the kingdom, Portugal applied a contrary policy of foster care and protection. The majority of Jews from what was Spain took refuge and settled in Portugal. In reaction to this immigration, King Manuel I, who had initially issued a law guaranteeing their protection, ordered in 1497 the expulsion of all Sephardim who did not apply to Catholic baptism.
Many of these Portuguese Jews and Christian converts managed to flee and settle in some Mediterranean countries such as Morocco, France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria; o Northern European cities such as London, Nantes, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Glückstadt, Hamburg and Cologne, and in other countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, the Antilles and the United States of America, among others.
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