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Nearly 200 million people worldwide have Sephardic roots
They can now discover their Jewish ancestry dating back to the days of the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal
Nearly 200 million descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities around the world can now apply for a "Sephardic ancestry certificate," media reported on Monday.
Recent genetic research has shown that people, whose ancestors were forcibly converted from the 14th century onwards, mostly reside in Latin America, North America and Europe. They can now discover their Jewish ancestry dating back to the days of the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal.
The initiative was launched by the American Sephardic Federation's Jewish Experience Institute, Reconectar. The organization is dedicated to helping descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities reconnect with the Jewish people.
Genie Milgrom, a genealogist who was able to track her maternal line back to 1405, before the Inquisition, is leading the work of digitizing the Inquisition records, which provides an unprecedented amount of genealogical information for those seeking to uncover their possible Jewish roots.
“The Certificate of Sephardic Ancestry is historic for so many around the world and especially in Latin and North America who yearn to connect with their past and up to now had no way to accomplish this,” she said.
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Although the certificate give holders no legal status, a growing number of people of Jewish descent want to reconnect with their heritage.
“We have seen in recent years an unprecedented interest from those whose Jewish ancestors were forcibly converted, to reconnect with their heritage and learn more about their past,” said Ashley Perry (Perez), president of Reconnectar, and director of the Knesset Caucus for the Reconnection with the Descendants of Spanish and Portuguese origin.
“This is a paradigm-shaping moment in Jewish history because, for the first time, tens of millions of those whose ancestors were forcibly disconnected from the Jewish people have the tools to seek some type of reconnection,” he added.
Although estimates vary, historians believe that at least 200,000 Jews lived in Spain before the Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered them to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country.
After the mass expulsion in 1492, around 100,000 Jews decided to move to neighboring Portugal, where a minor Jewish population was already residing.