Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*
A HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for 2 or 3 of today's items.
Covid
The ICUs of eight regions, on the verge of collapse’says La Vanguardia here.
Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain
Black humour?
Of course, burial service folk are not helped by a medieval law about an obligatory over-speedy process, demanding burial or cremation within 48 hours. As if freezers hadn't been invented.
From Mark Stücklin’s Spanish Property Insight here: Higher property taxes on the way as Spain’s shaky foundations get hammered by Covid-19.
As Cataluña faces the prospect of another coronavirus lockdown, the region’s government has announced it is investing €2.5m to establish its own space agency and a further €18m in launching six communications satellites, says The Guardian here. IGIMSTS.
Only 9 driving school cars seen this morning during my 2-3km drive to my parking spot in Lérez. But, then, it is a sort of holiday and, most relevantly, the test place is closed. The last of these was being taught to signal right as she was going straight on. At - you've guessed it - a roundabout.
Lérez, by the way is at the bottom of this fine painting of O Burgo bridge in the 17th century. Both towers and the Pontevedra city walls have all gone, sadly. And there's now a petrol station at the Lérez end, where the trees were. Rumoured for some time to be going.
María has confirmed that the driving schools of Pontevedra are still a racket. As I expected.
Talking of beautiful things in Spain, try this - a photo-gallery of some Mozárabic churches.
Almost a propos . . . Muslim refugees uncover Sephardic roots in Spain. See the nice article below.
Maria’s Day 48.
Ireland
Over 80% of those reported for brothel-keeping are women.
I doubt this is true of Spain's (many, many) brothels.
The USA
This is the world's most powerful man. And he might well still be in a few days'/weeks' time:-
Meanwhile . . . Armed groups prepare for violence on election day in key swing state of Pennsylvania. Similar scenes are playing out across America, leaving a country bracing for chaos.
And . . . What a surprise! Trump's boasts of help from Sean Connery fall apart. In respect of planning permission for his Scottish golf course.
Finally
I had no idea that Marbella owed so much to Sean Connery.
BTW . . Does everyone know that 'Sean' is a version of Juan/John?
THE ARTICLE
Muslim refugees uncover Sephardic roots in Spain: After more than 500 years in exile, one expulsion for being Jewish,nother for being Muslim, and years living in Palestinian refugee camps, members of the Iskandarani family have been given Spanish passports and can return home.
Heba and Rewa Iskandarani, Palestinian refugee sisters aged 26 and 20, received the passports after fulfilling criteria under a government scheme inviting Sephardic Jews with roots in Iberia to apply for citizenship.
The pair, born in Dubai to a Palestinian refugee father and a Lebanese mother, had no idea their family had Jewish heritage until 2016 when Heba, frustrated at being stateless, started to research their history to see if they could claim a nationality that would entitle them to a passport.
Having faced down her Muslim family’s initial scepticism about their Jewish ancestry, put in four years of investigation and overcome bureaucratic hurdles, she and her sister received Spanish passports last month.
“I wept and shouted with joy. I now have basic human rights to be accepted in society as an equal individual,” Ms Iskandarani said. “For the first time in my life I feel confident and free.” Previously she had to use a document identifying her as a “Palestinian Refugee of Lebanon”, which made her “feel ashamed, and less than other people”.
Ms Iskandarani, who lives in Dubai but is studying for a doctorate in planning at Birmingham City University, said that when she first mentioned their Jewish heritage, “my father thought I was insane”. She took a DNA test that confirmed her father’s family came from Iberian and north African stock. Family documents and oral tradition revealed great uncles with names such as Reuben and Jacob.
To amass the evidence needed to apply for the passport she recruited a US historian who traced their lineage to Barcelona, where an ancestor, Abraham, belonged to a wealthy family of tax collectors who owned vineyards. “They were stripped of their property, which was given to the church, and expelled,” Ms Iskandarani said.
In 1492 after the victory of the Catholic monarchs over the Moors at Granada, Spain’s 300,000 Jews were forced to convert or leave. Over centuries the Iskandarani family moved from Morocco to Alexandria, where they converted to Islam, before moving to Jaffa in Palestine. But they were again expelled when the city became part of the newly created state of Israel in 1948, fleeing to Lebanon where they lived in Palestinian refugee camps.
Before Spain’s offer closed last year, after registering 132,000 applicants, the sisters had to rush to learn Spanish to meet the deadline. When they arrived in Spain to submit the application, they travelled to their ancestral street in Barcelona’s old Jewish quarter. “I couldn’t believe it because when my sister and I arrived there we saw a Palestinian flag hanging from a balcony,” she said. “It was like a sign from God that we had arrived home.”
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.