In 1492 Spain expelled all its Jews. Now they welcome back descendants of those displaced.
Transcript
[Darris McNeely] Reconciliation is always a good thing to strive for, whether it’s on the personal level, and sometimes even as noteworthy on the national level. There was an article recently about Spain’s efforts to reconcile with the Jews they expelled from Spain in the year 1492. Every American schoolchild should know that 1492 is when Columbus sailed the ocean blue from Spain and eventually discovered the Americas. But in 1492 in Spain, something else went on that isn’t that well known, perhaps, in some books – they expelled all the Jews from Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella – they wanted to take back the country for Catholicism and make it a strictly Roman Catholic country. They also expelled hundreds of thousands of Muslims at that time, as well. And so, a mass exodus took place from Spain in that year, of both Jews and Muslims, but now, just recently, the Madrid Parliament passed a law where by later this year, they will finally enact and allow Jews who have connections and roots to those Jews expelled in 1492, to return to Spain if they can show proof of their connection there.
It’s quite an interesting development in Europe, in spite of all the other anti-Semitism that is taking place, and which we have covered quite often here on BT Daily. Because in other parts of Europe – France, notably, and even in parts of Germany – anti-Semitism has reared its head, and many Jews have elected to leave Europe. The State of Israel has continued to open their doors for any Jews to come and live there, but now we see a European nation, Spain, opening their doors to reconcile with Jews that were once kicked out, or at least the descendants of those Jews from that period of 1492.
It’s an interesting development. It’s certainly a noble effort. We will be following that to see how that goes, but in the light of other unrest throughout Europe, against Jews in particular from several quarters, to see this is quite an interesting matter for us to consider, and to always think about this matter of reconciliation and the stakes that are there, the consequences and it will take to reconcile on a national level and always on a personal level, as well.
