Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz has spoken out against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe.
Da Cruz was talking in the context of the approval of the new law, finally brought into effect to welcome back Sephardic Jews expelled from Portugal in the 1400s.
“We have taken a long time to deal with this material,” she said – alluding not to the 600-year gap since the Jews were hounded for their beliefs but for the time it has taken to activate the law passed last April.
“The liberation of prisoners from Auschwitz has only just been celebrated,” she told a press conference. “It is good that memories do not forget and that we all involve ourselves in the combat against very, very worrying signs of anti-Semitism” that are once again “raging through Europe”.
Thanks to the new law descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews can apply for Portuguese nationality. They will not need to come to Portugal to do so. It is a matter of filling in forms and waiting.
According to Jewish leaders here, the whole process should take no longer than four months and will open Europe to hundreds whose families fled to South America and other countries outside the EU.
Calling the approval of the long-awaited law “an historic moment”, secretary general of the network of Jewish synagogues in Portugal, Jorge Patrão, said it “dignified our country by recognising a right that was due to the descendants of Portuguese Jews”.
By NATASHA DONN natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
