Proposed Knesset Law would create memorial day for the victims of the Spanish Inquisition

A new law being proposed by Israel’s Parliament would create an official Day to Commemorate the Victims of the Inquisition.

During the Spanish Inquisition in the Early Modern period, forced Jewish converts to Christianity were brutally persecuted.

The bill, proposed by Member of Knesset Michal Cotler-Wunsh, would create a memorial day to be held annually on 1st November, the date that the Spanish Inquisition was formally established in 1478. It has been suggested that the day would be marked with educational activities that teach on the shared history of Jews with Sephardic ancestry, as well as the mass expulsion of the Jewish population from Spain and Portugal. The Minister of Diaspora Affairs will also host an official state ceremony to mark the occasion and commemorate the victims of the Catholic persecution.

The President of the Hispanic-Jewish Foundation has maintained that Spain and Latin America are gaining further understanding of their roots and influence on Jewish traditions. He stated that it is therefore important that the Inquisition is remembered as “pure religious fanaticism and intolerance” with significant, lasting effects for those whose ancestors were subjected to the oppression.

Co-sigantories to the bill include numerous Knesset members from a variety of Israel’s major political parties, including members of the governing coalition.

Ms Cutler Wunsh stated that the bill will “create a day of memory and reminder in the Knesset for us to recognise this tragic event in our collective history and learn from it, in order to ensure ‘never again’ in a world of ‘again and again’.”

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