ISRAEL HAYOM
by Erez Linn and AP
January 30, 2015

Five centuries after it burned thousands of Jews at the stake, forced thousands of others to convert to Christianity and expelled the rest, Portugal is granting citizenship rights to their descendants as part of an attempt to make amends. The Portuguese cabinet on Thursday approved a law offering dual citizenship to the descendants of those Sephardi Jews, the term commonly used for those who once lived in the Iberian peninsula. The effective date of the law will be made public soon. Similar legislation in Spain is awaiting final legislative approval…Like Spain, Portugal says its sole reason for granting citizenship is to redress a historic wrong….The Portuguese Inquisition, established in 1536, could be more cruel than its Spanish counterpart. It persecuted, tortured and burned at the stake tens of thousands of Jews. READ MORE