Free Republic

Spain said Friday it would extend by one year a law that makes it easier for descendants of Jews who were forced to flee five centuries ago during the Inquisition to get citizenship. The law - which aims to correct the "historical mistake" of sending Jews into exile in 1492, forcing them to convert to Catholicism or burning them at the stake - came into effect in October 2015 and was set to expire in October 2018. But government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said Spain's cabinet had agreed to extend the measure by one year until October 2019. So...

Amir Peretz says he is ready to conquer the seat of Prime Minister after he recaptures the Labor party leadership. Peretz spoke to the legal journal Orech Din about his plans to win the premiership. Peretz is convinced that the next Prime Minister will not be Netanyahu and sees himself as a worthy successor. However, he must first garner internal support in the Labor party. "I have begun a new journey, a journey between Afikim, Afeka, and Ofakim", said Peretz, referencing towns representing all strata of Israeli society. "This journey is meant to break the ethnic barriers which have been...

IQUITOS, Peru — If Ronald Reátegui Levy someday finds that he is the last Jew of Iquitos, it may well be of his own doing. His dream, which he has vigorously pursued, is to persuade the descendants of Sephardic merchants who settled in this remote corner of the Amazon basin more than a century ago to reaffirm their ties to Judaism and emigrate to Israel. “It is getting very lonely here,” said Mr. Reátegui Levy, 52, an inspector at Peru’s national oil company, referring to the more than 400 descendants of Jewish pioneers who have formally converted to Judaism this...

Claiming to be descendants of Jews forced to convert to Christianity, a group in Brazil is trying to reclaim its Jewish identity. Restored interior of the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, originally built by Dutch Jews in 1636.Photo: Courtesy PhotoGuru or charlatan? Moroccan-born Isaac Essoudry has become a controversial guide to a particular segment of Marranos.Photo: Irin Carmon Odmar Braga knows who he is."I'm the generation of the desert," he says. "I'm not in Egypt, but I'm not in the Promised Land." He has more than the biblical exodus in mind. Braga, 53, claims he is descended from Dutch Sephardic Jews...