Reparative Citizenship for Sephardi Descendants

Dalia Kandiyoti is Professor of English at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. She is the author of The Converso’s Return: Conversion and Sephardi History in Contemporary Literature and Culture (Stanford University Press, 2020), Migrant Sites: America, Place, and Diaspora Literatures (Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, 2009), and numerous articles on contemporary Sephardi, Latinx, and migration/diaspora literatures.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments



Introduction: Sephardi Jews, Citizenship, and Reparation in Historical Context

Dalia Kandiyoti and Rina Benmayor



Part I: Reparation and Reconciliation? Legal and Political Perspectives on the 2015 Laws



Chapter 1. “Reparative Citizenship”: Confronting Injustices of the Past or Building Modern Nationalisms?

Alfons Aragoneses



Chapter 2. Beyond Reparatory Justice: The Portuguese “Law of Return” as Nation Branding

Isabel David and Gabriela Anouck Côrte-Real Pinto



Chapter 3. Reparations in Spanish Parliamentary Debates about the 2015 Nationality Law for Descendants of Sephardi Jews

Davide Aliberti



Chapter 4. Personal Essay: Passport to the Past, Passport to the Future

Colette Capriles



Part II: Roots of “Returns”: Early Uses of Jewish and Muslim History



Chapter 5. “Spaniards We Were, Spaniards We Are, and Spaniards We Will Be”: Salonica’s Sephardic Jews and the Instrumentalization of the Spanish Past, 1898–1944

Devin E. Naar



Chapter 6. “Spanish Jews” and “Friendly Muslims”: The Historical Absence of a Citizenship Campaign for Muslims of Iberian Descent

Elisabeth Bolorinos Allard



Chapter 7. Personal Essay: The Story of a Spanish Dönme

Uluç Özüyener



Part III: Negotiating the Present: Between States and Official Communities



Chapter 8. Moriscos Andalusíes: Historical Reparation, Reconciliation, and the Duty of Memory

Elena Arigita and Laura Galián



Chapter 9. Negotiating Historical Redress: The Spanish Law of Nationality for Sephardi Descendants and Spain’s Jewish Communities

Daniela Flesler and Michal Rose Friedman



Chapter 10. Personal Essay: “Congratulations, You Are Portuguese!” Reflections on Identity and Nationality

Rita Ender



Chapter 11. Personal Essay: Sefarad Postponed

Ruth Behar



Part IV: Sephardi Descendants: Emotions, Identities, and Bureaucracies



Chapter 12. “La Nostalgia de Sefarad Tira Mucho, Pero No Tanto”: Attachment, Sentiment, and the Ethics of Refusal

Charles A. McDonald



Chapter 13. Affective Citizenship and Iberian Sephardi Descendants

Rina Benmayor



Chapter 14. Descendants of Conversos in the Americas: The Ancestral Past, Sephardi Identity, and Citizenship in Spain and Portugal

Dalia Kandiyoti



Chapter 15. Portuguese Citizenship for Brazilian Descendants of Sephardic Jews: A Netnography

Marina Pignatelli



Appendix: Certifying Origins for Sephardic Descendants in Portugal: A Snapshot of the Evaluation Process

Teresa Santos and Heraldo Bento



Chapter 16. Personal Essay: The Fez in the Water—Exile and Return

Victor Silverman



Coda: Directions in Citizenship and Historical Repair

Dalia Kandiyoti and Rina Benmayor



Index