Law to embrace descendants of Jews exiled 500 years ago

THEY WERE burned at the stake, forced to convert or chased into exile. Now Spain is moving to right a half- millennium old ‘‘ historic mistake’’ against its once flourishing Sephardic Jewish community: the European Union country is on the verge of offering citizenship to descendants of victims estimated to number in the millions.

The Spanish government plans to make amends with a law expected to be passed within weeks or months in Parliament that offers citizenship to the descendants of legions of Jews forced to flee in 1492.

Asked whether the new law amounted to an apology, Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon replied: ‘‘ Without a doubt.’’

‘‘ What the law will do, five centuries later, is make amends for a terrible historic mistake, one of the worst that Spaniards ever made,’’ Ruiz-Gallardon said.

The term ‘‘Sephardic’’ literally means ‘‘Spanish’’ in Hebrew, but the label has come also to apply to one of the two main variants of Jewish religious practice. The other – and globally dominant one – being ‘‘Ashkenazic,’’ which applies to Jews whose lineage, in recent times, is traced to northern and eastern Europe.

Because of mixing between the groups and other factors, there is no accepted figure for the global Sephardic population, but reasonable estimates would range between a fifth and a third of the world’s roughly 13 million Jews.

Hundreds of thousands live in France and already have European Union passports. But the largest community is in Israel, where almost half of the six million Jews are considered Sephardic.

It is not clear how much of a historical link Spain will require. Most of Israel’s Sephardics hail from northern Africa and southern Europe, which were early ports of call after the expulsion from Spain, and so they may be able to easily show direct links.

But other communities, from places like Iraq and Yemen, are considered Sephardic by religious practice yet may have trouble proving a connection to Spain.

Either way, interest already is running high. Hundreds of Israelis claiming Sephardic ancestry have contacted the Spanish Embassy in Tel Aviv, begun researching their family histories and taken to the airwaves to discuss their newfound citizenship possibilities.

Leon Amiras, who heads an association of immigrants to Israel from Latin countries, said his phone hasn’t stopped ringing. ‘‘ People from every corner are interested, from professors to doctors, engineers to plumbers and bus drivers,’’ he said.

The reform will allow dual nationality, enabling the newly minted Spaniards to retain their previous citizenship.

The new Spanish law, the government says, will be relatively simple. Applicants need only have their ancestry certified by a rabbi and the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities.

Applicants will have to provide details of their birth and family name or prove knowledge of Ladino, the Judeo- Spanish language considered to be the ‘‘Yiddish’’ of Sephardic Jews.

Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree in 1492, banishing Jews as part of a policy to unite Spain under Catholicism.