Ukrainian or Spanish

 

As a Jew, Would I Rather Be Ukrainian or Spanish? A Brief Clarification…

By Alberto Salinas

Miami, June 21, 2025

In my last piece, I wrote that I would decline Ukrainian citizenship if it were offered to me — because of the historical ties between that nation and the extermination of Jews, from its early foundation to the Holocaust.

After reading it, a friend confronted me during our usual Wednesday gathering:

“If that’s the case,” he asked, “then why did you choose to become Spanish?”

I am Jewish — with the not-so-rare distinction of descending from Sephardic Jews on my father’s side and Ashkenazi Jews on my mother’s. Both lineages have endured centuries of persecution.

Is the Spanish Inquisition the same as the Nazi genocide?

The Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal established by the Catholic Church in the 15th century — distant now, in time. It became a repressive apparatus using summary trials, torture, and public executions to forcibly convert Jews (among other “heretics”) to Catholicism. But the objective was not physical extermination — it was “purity of faith.”

In 1492, after confiscating their property, the Catholic Monarchs expelled the Jews from Spain. The Inquisition persisted for three more centuries. Historians estimate that about 350,000 people were tried during that time; of those, 10% — roughly 35,000, mostly conversos or “crypto-Jews” — were condemned to die by burning at the stake.

Nazism, by contrast, was a totalitarian, racist, antisemitic political ideology. Grounded in pseudoscience — eugenics — it viewed Jews as a dangerous, inferior race to be eradicated.

The Holocaust is the greatest crime ever committed by humanity — because of its scale, its brutality, and its systematic plan to annihilate an entire people. It is part of our recent history, and its consequences are still unfolding.

“Memory, individual or collective, is the only way human beings have continuity in the world. Without memory, there can be no promise, no responsibility.”

— Hannah Arendt

On March 31, 1992 — exactly 500 years after the expulsion — King Juan Carlos of Spain officially revoked the Edict of Expulsion, acknowledging the historical wrongs committed by the Catholic Monarchs.

In keeping with that gesture, the Spanish government passed a law in June 2015 granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews. I applied for and received Spanish nationality through that law. Without forgetting the Inquisition, and with no resentment, I recognized the courage of both the Spanish Crown and State in making a gesture of historical reparation.

I also felt they had restored my ancestral citizenship.

In contrast…

Bohdan Khmelnytsky, responsible for the first genocidal catastrophe against Jews in modern history (in the 17th century), is still celebrated today as the Father of the Ukrainian Nation. His face appears on coins and 5-hryvnia bills.

Several Ukrainian nationalist leaders, in their resistance to Soviet oppression during World War II, aligned with the Nazis — participating in pogroms and massacres of local Jews. In 2010, two of these Nazi collaborators were declared “Heroes of Ukraine” by then-president Viktor Yushchenko. Today, streets, monuments, and museums bear their names.

A gesture of active memory

I could never accept the citizenship of a country that honors my executioners as national heroes — in contrast to another country that has formally acknowledged its historical crimes.

Eradicating antisemitism begins with leaders who are willing to say, “Yes, we did this.” That’s how it worked in Germany: the Holocaust is taught in schools, and Hitler’s image is outlawed.

Would Ukraine, even with it’s current Jewish president, do the same?

“I reject Ukrainian citizenship for the sake of my dead — for those who could not, for the forgotten, for those betrayed by their own neighbors.”

Postscript: “I wasn’t born yesterday…”

A 2014 Pew Research survey found that between 48% and 50% of Spaniards held antisemitic views. Although those numbers improved in subsequent years, they surged again after October 7, 2023.

I’m also well aware that Spain’s current government is openly “anti-Israel” — a stance many recognize as a form of modern antisemitism.

For Venezuelan Jews — and non-Jews alike — having a second citizenship isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. But that’s another story altogether.