On righting historical wrongs – Nesi Altaras in Haaretz:

‘In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close circle of oligarchs and allies have come under renewed scrutiny, not to mention sanctions.
One of them is Russian Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich, who was sanctioned by Britain in March 2022, his assets in the country frozen and forced to relinquish ownership of Chelsea Football Club. The UK also tightened visa requirements for him and others on the sanctions list.
But that was less of a worry for Abramovich who, in addition to holding Russian and Israeli passports, is also a citizen of Portugal. And it is this European Union passport that has now attracted considerable attention, if not consternation. It has, so far, led to the start of an official government inquiry, the detainment of a chief rabbi, the relinquishing of the Porto Jewish Community from its role in the citizenship acquisition process, and an amendment to Portugal’s citizenship law.

Spain and Portugal’s Sephardic ancestry laws, passed in 2015, under whose auspices Abramovich attained a Portuguese passport, were supposed to "right a historic wrong": The Expulsions of 1492 and 1496 that displaced tens of thousands of Jews from Iberia. Their descendants, the Sephardim, initially settled mainly in Morocco and the Ottoman Empire, as well the Americas (often as crypto-Jews).
Portugal finally abolished the Inquisition, tasked with investigating alleged heretics, often crypto-Jews, in 1821; its last auto-da-fé ("act of faith," a public penance for accused apostates or heretics) was held in Lisbon in 1739. In 1826, there was a last Spanish auto-da-fé in Valencia, in which one Jew was burned alive. Spain's decree of expulsion was only formally revoked in1968. Five centuries later, both countries' laws, sometimes framed as a 'Law of Return,' granted citizenship to anyone proving descent from Jews expelled from Iberia.

Despite this stated goal, I found in my master’s research at McGill University, conducted in 2021, that Sephardic Jews applying for citizenship are driven less by a deep-seated interest in the historic reconciliation touted by Spain and Portugal, and far more by practical needs such as global mobility.
Many applied first to Spain, but when it then required language and citizenship tests, thousands flocked to Portugal. Spain shut down its process in October 2019 as scheduled, following a year-long extension.’

(…)

‘Despite being a Russian Jew with no publicly known Sephardic connection, Abramovich was approved for Portuguese citizenship in April 2021.
The Portuguese law outsourced the job of approving applicants’ Sephardic heritage to the Jewish communities of Porto and Lisbon. Abramovich’s application, along with almost 90 percent of applicants, was approved by the Porto Jewish Community and signed by the community’s chief rabbi, Daniel Litvak.’

(…)

‘We do know there is a large reservoir of goodwill for Russian oligarchs in Jewish communal circles around the globe. Abramovich and other Russian Jewish oligarchs have earned the trust of mainstream Jewish institutions by becoming major donors.
But the "benevolent philanthropist" image they cultivate is not accidental. And it is this cloak of respectability and generosity that might have moved the levers for Abramovich in Portugal.’

(…)

‘The other issue with basing restitution on direct bloodline descent is the fact that it goes back to a period before modern recordkeeping. It is extremely difficult for an individual to locate a paper trail to certify the fact that their great-great-great-great (and another few greats) parent was a Jew from Iberia.
And you only need a single one; as far back as you need to go to find one. That opens up the process to issues of trust. For members of established Sephardic congregations, this is easy enough: Their institution is trusted to certify their membership.’

(…)

‘The other worrying development that came from the Abramovich news is that the Portuguese government – depending on the result of the official inquiry – could confiscate the citizenships it has granted. The implication of such a confiscation would be serious not only for the beneficiaries of the Sephardic restitution law, but also for debates around citizenship in Europe more generally.
Revocation of citizenship is already a controversial act; citizenship, as Hannah Arendt describes it, is "the right to have rights." While the loss of a secondary citizenship would not have such grave consequences for the Russian oligarch, normalizing citizenship confiscation in the EU is a dangerous precedent to set.’

(…)

‘The Abramovich episode (which, despite its high profile, may well not be the only authorized claim made on shady grounds) led the Portuguese government to introduce a new – and quite vague – requirement into its Sephardic citizenship law. In 2020, the government had discussed and ultimately shelved possible amendments to require citizenship recipients to reside in Portugal for two years. The new amendment does not go that far but it does introduce a requirement for applicants to have an "effective connection to Portugal."
The change will not be retroactive. And what would satisfy this "effective connection" is still unclear. The great majority of people who meet all other requirements do not speak Portuguese, have never been to Portugal, and do not intend to relocate. How far will they have to go to establish and then prove their effective connection? Will a visit suffice? Or will they have to start a business, pay taxes, or declare residence in Portugal?’

Read the article here.

When the wish to right historical wrongs involves citizenship, especially citizenship of an EU country, it’s only logical that opportunists will try to get a passport.

And how many Russian Jews that flocked to Israel under the law of return were not really Jewish? Whatever it means to be a real Jew. And Israel is not even EU.

If you need to prove that you had an ancestor who was a Sephardic Jew born in let’s say 1643, it’s hard to distinguish where the falsification starts and the genuine proof ends.

Also, countries sell passports. Malta is a good example. But the US ‘sells’ Green Cards to heavy investors, and venture capitalist Peter Thiel managed to get New-Zealand passport, without having spent more than three weeks in that country. New-Zealand is not a place that you associate with corruption.

But when the Jewish question is part of the equation and with that the question how Europe treated its Jews, long before the Nazis, the conversation quickly turns nasty.

Besides Abramovich, which raises many questions, there are still the crypto-Jews. I wrote about them a couple of years ago. Speaking of identity and its vagueness, there are not many better examples than the crypto-Jews, Jews who claim to be descendants of converted Jews from Iberia who fled the inquisition. Most orthodox rabbis don’t recognize crypto-Jews.
Above all, there is nation state privilege. Whatever you think you are, many of your rights (Arendt indeed) are closely connected to just one question: what passport do you have?

As long as EU and Canadian and American passports are seen as a shortcut to the real existing paradise on earth, people will do everything to obtain such a passport.
Including claiming that they are a descendant of a Sephardic Jew. Of all the other possibilities available to obtain an EU-passport, this seems to be one of the easier routes.

Read more about Abramovich here.