Description:
In 2015, both Portugal and Spain passed laws enabling descendants of Sephardi Jews to obtain citizenship, an historic offer of reconciliation. Drawing from scholarly and first-person essays, Reparative Citizenship for Sephardi Descendants analyzes the memory and afterlives of those who were wronged, and how reconciliatory rights impact the lives of those affected.
Brief description:
Rina Benmayor is Professor Emerita at California State University Monterey Bay, where she taught oral history, literature, and digital storytelling. Her books and co-edited volumes include: Romances Judeo-Españoles de Oriente (Gredos 1979; on Sephardic ballads); Latino Cultural Citizenship (Beacon 1997); Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (Duke 2001); and Memory, Subjectivities, and Representation: Approaches to Oral History in Latin America, Portugal, and Spain (Palgrave 2015).
Review Quotes:
"Reparative Citizenship for Sephardi Descendants is a thorough, thoughtful, and empathetic exploration of the many issues that surround the 2015 Spanish and Portuguese nationality laws and the choice, on the part of individual Jews of Sephardi descent and conversos, to pursue (or eschew) this option. In this fascinating and compelling collection, editors Kandiyoti and Benmayor have gathered an astonishing range of perspectives on the historical, emotive, sociological, and political dynamics that underlie the Sephardi quest for "reparative citizenship."" - Sarah Abrevaya Stein, UCLA
"Kandiyoti and Benmayor's volume brings together the legal and emotional repercussions of a return to Spain and Portugal for Sephardic Jews. Beautifully intermingling questions of expulsion, exclusion and reparation, Reparative Citizenship for Sephardi Descendants treats readers to a nuanced and multifaceted examination of Sephardim. By melding personal essays with rigorous academic studies, the editors have compiled a book that speaks to the heart and mind while addressing the discomfiting realities of an invitation six hundred years in the making." - Sara J. Brenneis, Amherst College