A majority of the Jews living in Turkey are descendants of the Jewish ethnic division known as Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal during the end of the fifteenth century. Their spoken language is a distinct dialect of Spanish, and this language has been called Judaic among the community and in some official records. In this study, an attempt will be made to explain how Spain’s proposal of citizenship for Jews in the world that was originally Sephardic was reported in the Turkish press and therefore among the Turkish Jewish community. Generally, we see that topics related to this were neglected in extant studies conducted in Turkey about the Jewish people.

The historical ties Jews in Turkey with Spain first came to the fore during the abolition of the worldly powers of the Grand Rabbinate in the Republic Period. After that, discussions about “ties and loyalty” between the Spanish state of the time and Jews in Turkey had lost importance until 1931. When we look generally, the news about whether or not Jews will leave Turkey to go to Spain was first published by the Cumhuriyet newspaper in May 1931. Other newspapers of the period Son Posta, Vakit, Milliyet, and Yarın also reported on this subject. However, the Akşam and Hakimiyet-i Mlliye newspapers did not report any news on this issue. Subsequently, however, when this issue came up on the agenda for the second time in October 1931, it was reported by the Vakit newspaper. Vakit published this news based on a report in the “Times” newspaper. The newspaper Cumhuriyet remained indifferent to the issue at this time. When the news on the subject published in May and October are examined, we can conclude that Jews in Turkey did not accept the invitation of Spain because members of the Jewish Community who were interviewed by the press stated that they would not accept this invitation.

To sum up, in 1931, the issue of migration to Spain by Jews in Turkey at the invitation of the Spanish government came up in the next process, and it has not been on the agenda of the press again. Only in a document in the American Archive dated December 3 1946 is there information that the Spanish consular authorities encouraged the return of Sephardic Jews from İstanbul to Spain.

In the early 2000s, Spain began to offer citizenship to Sephardic Jews worldwide provided they renounced their current nationality. However, afterwards, the right of Sephardic Jews who want to become Spanish citizens and have dual nationality without relinquishing their current citizenship has come to the fore. The Ministers of Justice and Foreign Affairs of Spain announced that they would moderate the current law so that the grandchildren of Jews expelled from the country 500 years ago, estimated at 3 million, could become citizens of Spain. Finally, the necessary regulatory decisions were accepted by the Spanish Parliament in June 2015. As of October 1, 2019, Sephards’ right to obtain dual nationality without residing in Spain ended.

After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, we did not encounter any incident on the historical ties between the Portuguese state and the Jews in Turkey. However, in 2012, shortly after Spain attempted to enact a dual citizenship law that would cover Sephardic Jews worldwide, Portugal also started giving dual citizenship rights to the Jews it had expelled during the end of the fifteenth century. Moreover, in 2015, before the Spanish intervention, Portugal granted Portuguese-origin Sephardic Jews around the world the right to apply for citizenship. This right became official with decree number 30-A/2015 of 27 February 2015. When we look generally, there is a dearth of sufficient information from the decision of Spain and Portugal to grant citizenship to Jews they had expelled from their countries centuries ago on how many of the Jews in Turkey received citizenship or migrated. Finally, we have to state that the Şalom newspaper was used as the main source for the 2000s.