Monday, December 15, 2014

NEW INFORMATION ABOUT PORTUGUESE NATIONALITY FOR SEPHARDIC DESCENDANTS

I just received the following letter:




Dear  Rav  Daniel Eidensohn

I send you the news about the new law about the Portuguese Nacionality for Sephardic Jews that will start at the beginning of the 2015. Can you publish it at Daat Torah_

Best regards and Kol tuv

Daniel Litvak
===============================================
By Jewish Community of Oporto, Portugal
Shalom.

In early 2015, the Portuguese Government may grant Portuguese nationality to the descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, who demonstrate a traditional connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin.

How to Obtain Portuguese Nationality and Passport?
  • Step 1: Certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community
  • Step 2: Application for Portuguese Nationality
  • Step 3: Obtaining a Portuguese Passport

Information about the step 1:
The applicant for Portuguese Nationality must first obtain a Certificate from the Portuguese Jewish Community which attests to his/her ties to a Sephardic Jewish Community of Portuguese origin. A request for this Certificate must be addressed to the Jewish Community of Oporto or to the Jewish Community of Lisbon.
From today, 15th December 2014, the Jewish Community of Oporto is ready to receive requests from descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews who wish to obtain a certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community attesting this status.
The request for a Certificate issued by the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto should be addressed by the applicant, or an attorney acting for the applicant, by digital means to the following email address: portuguesenationality@comunidade-israelita-porto.org, together with the following documents:
·   Contact details;
·   Copy of passport;
·  Birth certificate or similar document that contains applicant’s date of birth, place of birth and names of parents;
·   Proof of residence;
·   Payment of the Committee’s fee (€150,00 - one hundred and fifty euros); and
·  All of the supporting documentary evidence as may required for a proper evaluation of the matter and decision. Evidence of the applicant’s family history of connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin may be direct and circumstantial.
Payment of the Committee’s fee to review the request, in the amount of €150,00 (one hundred and fifty euros), must be made by bank transfer to the account of the Jewish Community of Oporto.

Information about the step 2 and step 3
Please visit the official website or blog of the Jewish Community of Oporto - http://jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.pt/2014_12_01_archive.html

If you need an opinion or statement of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community of Oporto. By Debora Elijah:
“The new legislation corrects a moral wrong. The long centuries of antisemitism in Portugal and the expulsions decreed by King D. Manuel I in 1496 cannot be denied.”
(Deborah Elijah is member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community of Oporto. She is also member of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto which issues Certificates.)

In Portugal, the Jewish Community of Oporto, founded 90 years ago, is the organization that unites local communal groups of the city of Oporto and its environs, while the Jewish Community of Lisbon, recognized 102 years ago, is the organization that unites local communal groups of Lisbon and its environs. (For more information about the Portuguese communities, please visit the website of the World Jewish Congress - http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/communities/show/id/109)

Wishing you a very happy, healthy and light-filled Chanukah,
Best regards.

By Jewish Community of Oporto
Board of Directors
Official website: http://www.comunidade-israelita-porto.org          
Official blog: jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.com

9 comments:

  1. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.631519

    The Portuguese parliament passed a resolution Friday recommending
    that the government recognize a Palestinian state, the Portuguese
    newspaper Correio da Manhã reported.



    Only nine members of the 230-member Assembly of the Republic voted
    against the resolution, which was jointly sponsored by the country’s
    three largest parties: Social Democratic Party, the People's Party (both
    right-wing parties despite their names), and the Socialist Party.

    The resolution called on Portugal’s government to “recognize, in
    coordination with the European Union, the State of Palestine as an
    independent and sovereign state, in accordance with the principles of
    international law," Correio da Manhã reported...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I strongly, completely but respectuously oppose to this scandalous opportunistic buy out that you are publicizing in your interesting blog.

    We now have Israel as our land and have to work hard to live securely in it until Moschiah comes. Why should Jews go back to a country that was the epitome of assimilation and torture, the house of the most brutal inquisition in history, for us?? There's almost nothing left for us there right now. No Jewish school, no yeshivas, almost no kashrus, unless 3 communities in Porto, Lisbon and Belmonte.

    Now that we can live freely in Israel, now that galus is arriving to an end after almost 2000 years why should we be lurred and bought out by a pro-palestian country in economical and social crisis?!! Where are Portugal's apologies for all that happened to marranos and Jews throughout its history??!! Can't you the pure opportunistic trap right there??!!

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  3. People can utilize this to obtain EU citizenship, and the related benefits, even with no intention of ever setting foot in Portugal.

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  4. What kind of benefits are you talking about Moe Ginsburg?

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  5. All through the exiles, Jews always knew that they shouldn't get too
    comfortable in any country. The always tried to have a place to run to,
    should the need arise.

    The Zionist narrative is that the State of Israel is the solution to preventing another Holocaust (chas veshalom). However the stark reality is that there are no guarantees that the State of Israel will always be able to protect its citizens from their enemies. Jews might actually someday need to flee Israel!

    In the event that other countries decide to close their borders to Israelis, an Israeli who holds no other citizenship, might find himself one day a virtual prisoner in his own country, with no option to escaping potential danger. Having foreign citizenship is one form of "hishtadlut" that a person can do to protect himself.

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  6. Paris is not a safe haven anymore than it has been throughout history. What you said about Israel may have already been said about other countries by previous generations. But that was about other countries, not the land of Israel it self!
    Plus there are now more Jews In Israel than out.

    Your "what if" narrative of possibilities is virtually limitless, I can't argue with that for sure. The 6 days war, the Kippur war, rav Kooks's writing the prophecies that are slowly being fulfilled, these reasons should be more than enough to convince to make Alyah, no need to relate it to the holocaust.

    I don't think you belong to the neturei karta, so as I wrote early, now we have a country to develop, expand and fight for, now is the time.

    Hag hanoukkah sameah.

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  7. Being a target is not determined by whether you live in Brooklyn or in Yerushalaim, it's about being Jewish or not unfortunately.

    "At least while Jews remain in many countries around the world, in particular the USA they have people speaking out for Jews" So you rather prefer have your brother outside the land instead of him helping out the reconstruction of the country? Until when??

    Yes, I have Emunah. G.d is in charge of it all, not man. Do the most of what you can he'll take the rest in charge

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  8. I don't need to make "Aliyah". As my screen name, IsraelReader, implies, I already live in Israel.

    I agree with you that the country needs to be developed and expanded. That's the mitzvah of "Yishuv Ha'aretz". If we need to fight for our lives, that's also a mitzvah, "Pikuach Nefesh".

    You blithely refer to the Yom Kippur war as a positive indication. Apparently you are unaware of the near calamity of that particular war. In fact, the situation was so bad, that the Israeli leadership was about to flee the country and set up a government in exile. It was only after much teshuvah and tefillah, that Hashem had mercy on the Yishuv, and helped them turn the tide of the battle. However there was no guarantee that this would have happened, and the end of the story could have been disastrous.

    As an aside, I believe that this was due to Israeli arrogance, post 6-Day War. The subtle message was ישראל בטח בצה"ל; if we have Tzahal then we're good to go. We don't need Hahsem (ch"v). Hashem therefore needed to send us a message that we should internalize that our lives are solely in His hands. ישראל בטח בהשם, not in Tzahal.

    Can the State of Israel guarantee its citizens that a holocaust will
    never again occur there? I believe that the answer is, NO.

    If you chose to believe otherwise, we can agree to disagree. Not to be judgmental, I feel, that those who
    place their trust in the State of Israel are misguided, at best, or delusional, at worst.

    I live in Eretz Yisrael with the constant awareness that if chas ve'shalom we are not deemed worthy of living there, Hashem has His ways of making us need to leave. As such, I believe that it's always prudent to have other options available to you. This brings us back to the topic at hand, of having alternative citizenship, in case there's a need to run away from Israel.

    You write that you've been living in Europe since you were born. You also seem to feel very strongly about how Jews should be making Aliyah to Israel.

    I'd therefore like to ask you a few personal questions:

    1) Given your strong feelings for living in Israel, why haven't you made Aliyah yet?

    2) If you were to make Aliyah, would you renounce your foreign citizenship from your country of origin?

    3) Please explain why you would or wouldn't renounce your foreign citizenship.

    4) Hypothetically, if you were a native born Israeli, who didn't have any other citizenship, would you accept foreign citizenship if it was offered to you?

    5) Please explain why you would or wouldn't accept foreign citizenship if it was offered to you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the info on the 6 days war.

    1) Because not everybody has the privilege of being born in the land, and moreover not anyone has the privilege to wake up early to H and the importance of living in Israel. If I'm not mistaken, if you're living outside Israel, precisely in France, it now takes at least 6 months to a year to complete the administrative process

    2&3 I already have two ID cards from two different countries and I can assure you that administrative issues are a time waste. If having only one citizenship doesn't prevent me from seeing my family overseas or traveling otherwise then I probably wouldn't renew them. I wouldn't apply for a fourth one.

    4&5 I haven't the time to worry about "what ifs" anymore.

    You see taking on another citizenship as a way to escape the country "in case". And as an Israeli that's fine, even though I disagree, it's another topic. But now that I came to think more deeply about it, there is always the people who being outside the land right now will pick the citizenship " just to try it out" instead of considering Alyah in the first place. Then I don't need to depict you what would follow for the 4th time... That's mainly what I'm inflamed about. Portugal and Spain are just following France in the antisemitic and pro-palestinian trail, why shouldn't they with their brilliant history?

    ReplyDelete

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