The Haham Bashi (chief rabbi) attends a memorial service for the victims of a terrorist attack in Istanbul (Reuters)
With thanks Heather
The new Honorary Consul of Israel in Cádiz, Huelva and Extremadura, Pascual Salvador Sánchez-Gijón, has appealed to the Spanish government to speed up the granting of dual citizenship to 15,000 'Sephardic Turks' living a "very difficult situation" arising from the "Islamisation "process initiated by the Government of Tayyip Erdogan.
As reported in Europa Press, Pascual feared that 'mishaps' were in danger of befalling these descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 if they remained in Turkey.
Although the Spanish government had approved in 2014 the granting of Spanish passports to those who could prove they were descended from Sephardi Jews, Turkish-Jewish families, who still spoke Ladino (ancient Spanish), could wait 'up to five years' for their passports, the consul claimed.
But the Financial Times quotes one Jew as saying that Ladino is dying. Hardly any members of the younger generation speak it. The article claims that some
5, 000 Jews from a community of 17, 000 have applied for Spanish nationality.
Turkish Jews know that if they attempted to emigrate to Israel directly they'd probably be thrown in prison. So moving to Spain, possibly even a more antisemitic country than Turkey is an interim measure.
ReplyDeleteI found this free on-line resource.
ReplyDeletehttp://solitreo.com/ladinotype/about.php
Brian Berman [wrote the] proprietary LadinoType Engine™ that converts Romanized Ladino text into various Hebrew alphabets according to Ladino orthography. Users of LadinoType™ can use the intuitive and logical keyboard map that [he] created (see Keyboard Layout) to naturally input Romanized Ladino. It then uses over 250 technical parameters to convert the text into an intermediate code language that is then used to output the text in Hebrew characters according to the "standard" orthography rules of Ladino. Currently, the text can be outputted in Meruba Hebrew (block Hebrew), Rashi Print, and the handwritten cursive script known as Solitreo. ... use the website! I encourage you to look around and try it out. Also, PLEASE pass word of the site along to everyone you know!