29
nov-2021
From the perspective that comes from having managed hundreds of citizenship applications for Sephardim and/or their descendants in Portugal and Spain, we know that one of the main doubts among applicants is that which affects the proof of their Sephardic origin.
In many cases, it will be a professional genealogist who, after having studied the family lineage, will be able to determine the existence of an ascendant line that links the applicant to Jewish ancestors of Spanish or Portuguese origin, but in many other cases, there will only be indications of this ancestry through family tradition passed down through generations, without being a clear way of being able to prove it.
Sometimes, it´s possible to establish the existence of Jewish ancestors, but the difficulty lies in being able to prove that this Hebrew link has an Iberian origin. This is common among many applicants of Ashkenazi origin or from Jewish originally from communities in the Middle East or even Central Asia. As Sephardic family names rarely serve by themselves as reliable proof, it will be necessary to provide other evidence of Spanish or Portuguese Jewish origin. This is also the case for many Christian families with Jewish ancestry.
This article is based on our own information and on the publications of the Portuguese Israelite communities, and aims to compile some of the means of proof that can be presented in the process of acquiring Portuguese nationality for Sephardim, on the understanding that they will not be the same in each case and that many people will not be able to provide all of them. In any case, it should be borne in mind that, in principle, any type of evidence admissible in law may be submitted, and that all the evidence provided will always be analyzed as a whole. And, most important, that the burden of proof of the Sephardic origin always falls on the applicant.
The burden of proof in the processes of certification of Sephardic origin. Lisbon and Porto.
As much evidence as possible should be provided, of all kinds, proving direct or collateral descent from persons originating from the Jewish communities of Portugal and/or Spain. Given that a very large number of Spanish Jews emigrated to Portugal when they were expelled from Spain, proof of Spanish ancestry is also admissible from families known to have lived in Portugal or to have had family relations with Portuguese, which in practice was a permanent practice among Jews in the Diaspora.
1. Personal evidence - Family names and surnames, records and documents (including images, video and audio) of family ceremonies, weddings, burials, registration in Jewish communities, birth certificates, property deeds, bibliographies and quotations from books, copies of Inquisition archives etc.
2. Genealogy Evidence - A documented and reasoned genealogy report by an expert, or even by the candidate himself, is the most common mean of proof of a connection to the Portuguese or Spanish Jewish communities. The genealogist will study the candidate's family lineage and draw up a family tree and a subsequent report justifying this relationship. The Sephardic ascendant lines presented will be studied and evaluated by the analysis teams of the Portuguese Israelite Communities for their approval. It should be noted that all ascending generations must be documented by means of baptismal, marriage and/or death certificates or by means of scientific or historical bibliography. According to the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais de Portugal, certificates issued by Jewish communities must be accompanied by the applicant's family tree. Therefore, the certificate must be accompanied by the family tree indicating dates and places of birth, death and marriage of the ancestors. The tree should be as complete as possible, based on the documentation submitted.
3. Testimonial evidence - i.e., accredited witnesses who can attest to the tradition of a family. Testimonial evidence should be submitted in writing. Testimonial evidence should be in the form of written statements, signed by the witnesses and certified by a notary. Statements should be submitted together with copies of the witnesses' passports or identity documents. Witnesses must be credible and their testimony convincing. It is an offence for a witness to falsely state in writing any legally relevant fact. Statements will be evaluated together with other evidence and information. The rabbi of your Sephardic community, people who know the applicant personally, etc. can be witnesses or declarants.
4. Tradition of belonging to a Sephardic community. The process will be based on any and all elements that can guarantee that they have one (e.g. family surnames, and not just the applicant's surname), lists of surnames of traditional Sephardic families in the countries where their ancestors settled in the last five centuries, the communities and synagogues to which they belonged, cemetery records, types of ketubot and other objects that families may have preserved to the present day, religious or dietary rites and customs, episodes narrated in history books about the Jewish Diaspora, the applicant's connection to the Jewish world recognized by credible Halachic organizations.
5. Direct and circumstantial evidence may include the applicant's family history of connection to a Sephardic community, through surnames, use or knowledge of the Ladino language, direct or collateral descent, or other elements that are indicative of this connection. Circumstantial evidence may be provided by any type of proof.
6. The use of Ladin (Eastern Ladin, spoken by the Sephardim of the Eastern Mediterranean, or Haquetía, spoken by the Sephardim of Morocco and North Africa) by the candidate and/or by his/her parents and grandparents is an objective requirement of connection with Portugal and/or Spain, since it derives from Castilian and Portuguese languages. In order to prove that a candidate speaks Ladin or that Ladin is/was a language spoken in his/her family, it may be necessary to provide, for example, filmed records, photos of graves (with inscriptions in Ladin) or written documents (in Ladin) that the Israeli Community Analysis Committee deems acceptable. It is even possible to request a Skype interview with a member of the Committee.
7. A surname of Portuguese or Spanish origin may be a proven objective requirement of the Portuguese connection. What is a Portuguese surname? Throughout history, Jews were constantly surprised by the indiscreet enquiry of their secular names, their Hebrew names and their nicknames. In the history of the Jews in Portugal and Spain, three periods can be identified: the period of true names, the period of names changed by political imposition, and the period of true names restored. In the first period mentioned, Jews are not subject to great persecution. The names are typically Jewish or Iberian, the latter adopted for convenience, not by imposition. In the lists of surnames of the Jews living in Portugal in the 14th and 15th centuries, until the Edict of Expulsion, we can find hundreds of typically Jewish surnames (Abeatar, Aboab, Aboaf, Abravanel, Azecri, Baraha, Ben Hayun, Benatar, Bueno, Baruch Barzilai, etc. ) and hundreds of typically Iberian surnames (Afumado, Almeida, Alvo, Amado, Álvarez, Barrocas, Beiçudo, Beja, Belo, Bicudo, etc.). The second period is a period in which Jews were forbidden to practise Judaism and were forced to lose their identity. They adopted Iberian or even Christian names by imposition. After the proclamation of the Edict of Granada, the vast majority of Jews from Castile and Aragon moved to Portugal, mixing indistinctly with the local Jewish communities.
Others, however, were forced to convert to Christianity, or feigned conversion while keeping their customs secret. Many converts adopted place names (Ávila, León), plant names (Almendros, Limón) or patronymic names of old Castilian families. The same happened in Portugal after the Expulsion edict, with Jews adopting names such as António Nunes, Pedro Pereira, José Mendes and Isabel Ferro. Finally, the third period was that of the restoration of the true surnames. Those affected arrived in countries of refuge, where they found the freedom to profess Judaism again, and then sought to recover their identity. All those who had memory of their true names (typically Jewish, typically Iberian or a mixture of both) soon restored them with joy. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that all over the world there are many Sephardic Jewish names that are a Judeo-Iberian mixture, for example Menahem Galego, Lea Montesinhos, Josué Mendes, Yossef D'Ortas, Abraham Castelón, Raquel Franco, Shlomo Beja, León Baruc, Esther Marqués, Moshe Galindo or Salomón Navarro.
8. More important than having a Portuguese or Spanish surname in the applicant's name, is to have it in their genealogy. Applicants must be descendants of Portuguese or Spanish Jews. There are many Jews with Portuguese surnames who are not descendants of Portuguese or Spanish Jews. The Jewish Communities of Porto and Lisbon can grant a certificate of Sephardic origin to people who do not have Portuguese surnames and do not speak Ladino if they can prove that they are descended from Jews from the Iberian Peninsula.
9. The Regulations of the Portuguese Nationality Law added family memory, genealogy, family surnames, synagogue records, Jewish cemetery records, residence permits, property deeds, wills and even certificates issued by the Jewish communities to which the applicants belong and attesting to the use of Ladino expressions in Jewish rites, again resorting to the adverb "particularly" and adding "other elements of proof of the applicant's family connection with the Sephardic community of Portuguese origin". A person may not have a Portuguese name, not speak Ladino and yet belong to a traditional family from a community of Iberian origin. Similarly, a person may have a Portuguese or Spanish name, have learned to speak Ladino and not belong to a traditional family from a Sephardic community of Iberian origin. The law requires that this person is descended from a traditional family of a community of Portuguese or Spanish origin.
10. Other examples of documentary evidence: family registers, family tree, community archives of births, marriages and deaths (such as those in Amsterdam, London, Bordeaux, Curaçao, St. Thomas and Sofia), cemeteries and grave lists (such as those found in Surinam, Thessaloniki, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Curaçao, Bayonne, Paris, Vienna, Lima, Buenos Aires, etc.). Brit Milah records, general government archives showing arrivals from Portugal, lists of ships and passengers arriving from Portugal or Spain, such as the Spanish Crown's List of Passengers to the Indies, etc. etc.
11. Expert evidence, i.e., support from an expert on the Jewish Diaspora. The expert evidence must be signed by the expert(s) themselves. It can be submitted in Hebrew, English, Spanish or Portuguese. Some experts can help locate a particular Sephardic family name among different families in the Diaspora, even in remote regions. This type of expertise, when documented and motivated by an expert in the field, can be decisive in validating proof of a family's Iberian origin.
12. Other means of proof can be considered. Such is the case of DNA test results, which will be evaluated independently. It is also the case of documents proving the candidate's use of non-Portuguese surnames, which were once used by Jews of Portuguese origin.
Alejandro de Vicente de Rojas. Abogado
Larrauri & Martí Abogados
