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Lonnie's 500-Year Journey Home to Spain

2/28/2023

22 Comments

 
Picture
Lonnie Soury, shown here by Seville's Guadalquivir River, finally claimed his Spanish citizenship in 2023.

​“We knew we were very, very different,” said my friend Lonnie, when we got to talking about his childhood in the Bronx. This is what I love about my amigos. Every one of them has a backstory that makes you sit up and think, “Wait, what?”
 
“Different?” I asked. “In what way?”
 
Lonnie explained everyone in his family and his close-knit neighborhood spoke Ladino, a form of Medieval Castilian. They cooked traditional Mediterranean food, listened to European music, and were keenly aware of their 15th century Spanish roots. Having grown up in a nation of immigrants, I’m used to displaced families; by the time they get to my home state of California, most have only the haziest memories of the old ways. Not Lonnie’s folks.
 
“My grandmother made buñuelos, balls of fried dough, which are very common in Spain,” Lonnie recalled. “She got that from 500 years of ancestors passing that recipe along. That’s the food I grew up with, the food I loved. Bourekas and empanadas, pastries stuffed with spinach and feta cheese. Now I make some of these dishes myself.”

Picture
Lonnie made these bourekas, a version of the delicious burek I ate so much of on my Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour.

​Like most American kids, young Lonnie listened with half an ear when older relatives talked about the past.  He knew the family had been run out of Spain by the Spanish inquisitors for the crime of being Jewish, and that they’d made their way to the Greek city of Salonica (also known as Thessaloniki). As he grew older, Lonnie became more interested in his heritage. In 2012, when he learned Spain had launched a program to grant citizenship to the descendants of those expelled Sephardic Jews, he decided to go for it, to bring the family history full circle.

Picture
Lonnie visited the infamous Alley of the Inquisition, next to Inquisition headquarters in St. George's Castle in Seville's Triana district. The inquisitors often dragged their victims down this alley and tossed them into the Guadalquivir River.

​How hard is it to prove you’re a descendant of people who lived in Spain in the 15th century?
 
Ask Lonnie and he’ll roll his eyes.
 
But Lonnie is a stubborn man. The same grit and determination that kept his family going during exile — and kept his grandmothers’ grandmothers teaching younger generations to make buñuelos —  kept Lonnie at his keyboard and haunting government offices. The paperwork requirements were staggering. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, immigration papers, an FBI background check, New York State criminal background check, dozens more documents, all officially translated, notarized, and stamped.

Picture
Marguerite Algava and Leon Menache, Lonnie's grandparents, on their wedding day

​If you’ve never dealt with Spanish bureaucracy, let me tell you it’s like trying to swim through a giant vat of paella: messy, confusing, and full of sudden, inexplicable obstacles. As author Laurence J. Peter put it, “Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time the quo has lost its status.” Someone in Spain’s public relations department thought it would be a brilliant move to welcome Sephardic Jews home. The paper pushers, on the other hand, embodied business guru Robert Townsend’s comment, “It's a poor bureaucrat who can't stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried.”

Picture
Apostilles authenticate the multiple seals and swashbuckling signatures officials place on public documents. This isn’t Lonnie’s but it gives you the general idea.

​Lonnie soldiered on. There were plenty of setbacks, such as learning the Spanish government expected him to renounce his US citizenship; luckily that provision was soon dropped. There were also wild pieces of good fortune, such as hearing from a distant European cousin who was compiling a family genealogy, saw Lonnie’s mother’s death notice in 2015, and reached out to him.
 
‘’I get this call from this cousin saying, ‘Come to Europe,’” Lonnie told me. “I go to Salonica and I am resubmerged in this Spanish Greek family of mine, this Sephardic family. And found relatives I never knew existed. These are my mother’s first cousins. They said they were searching for my grandmother and her children for decades and even came to New York from Europe as late as the 1980s to find her, but never did. And my mother went to Greece to find her father’s grave.” He shook his head. “They never found each other.”

Picture
Margerite Menache Algava, Lonnie's grandmother, poses with her daughter Lillian, Lonnie’s mother, in the Bronx, 1938. They spent years trying to reconnect with family members in Europe, but it didn't happen until the Internet helped a cousin find Lonnie.

​Lonnie’s connection to Salonica wasn’t surprising. The Ottoman Turks running the city in the early 16th century could hardly believe their luck when thousands of skilled professionals and craftspeople, fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition, began pouring into town. Granting these new residents the status of dhimmis, protected persons, made the city so popular that Jews came from all over and by 1519 formed 58% of the city’s population. People began calling Salonica “Mother of Israel.”
 
“My mother's mother, Margarete Algava, who I was closest to,” Lonnie recalled, “talked about living in Greece and how there was this terrible fire in Salonika in 1917. That’s what drove her to the US; it destroyed much of the city and her home.” The blaze was centered in the prosperous downtown businesses and houses; half the city’s Jews relocated after the fire, most heading to America or Turkey. Twenty years later nearly all of those who stayed were sent to Auschwitz.
“There was a Greek club in New York where my grandmother would go with her family and sit and listen to music,” Lonnie said. “My cousin Michelle was a band leader. He came from Salonica. He was a Holocaust survivor. He played in a men’s band in Auschwitz. His two sisters were in the women’s band. That’s how they survived Auschwitz; they played music. He described to me one time when he was changing a light bulb in Auschwitz. It had broken, so they were going to cart him off and execute him. And Josef Mengele said, ‘No, no, no, he plays music.’ So my cousin survived.”
 
Wow, that’s the only positive story I’ve ever heard about Mengele, better known as the Angel of Death. Somehow I didn’t have him pegged a music lover.
 
Connecting with long-lost relatives was exciting; the endless paperwork not so much. Lonnie had to get the approval of the Federation of Sephardic Jews in Madrid and pass a rigorous, day-long Spanish exam. “It was nerve-wracking. Written comprehension, oral comprehension — a radio announcer, that was hard — writing, and conversation. Then a history exam with questions like ‘What’s the longest river in Spain?’” Passing meant he could formally apply for citizenship on a special website. Never dealt with an official Spanish government website? See my earlier remarks about their bureaucracy.
​
Picture
"You have to have all your papers before I can attend to you."

​In February of 2020 Lonnie came to Spain for what he thought would be the final filing and an interview. “I figured I’d have something in a few weeks.” He laughed. “ And then Covid hit. And then it was just impossible. There was no information.”
 
For years Lonnie stopped by the Spanish Embassy, emailed requests for information, worked with a lawyer. Nothing.
 
“So a couple of weeks ago,” he told me on Sunday, “I went back to the website. I felt, ‘I haven’t checked it in months. Why not?’ And it said “Consedido.” Granted.
 
“How did you feel?”
 
“It was moving. I said to the consular agent, 'Thank you. I’m really pleased. It’s been ten years since the first time I talked to you, three years since I filed all my papers, and five hundred years since my family could return to Spain.'” Lonnie smiled a little sadly. “My mother, I so wish she was alive, because she would have been over the moon.”

Picture
Lonnie enjoying a leisurely lunch in a Spanish home in Seville last Sunday.

Countdown to the Nutters Tour
As I scramble to prep for departure on our much-awaited Nutters Tour of Spain, I'm not going to have time to write a post next week. I'll try to post the following week, just before we leave on the 15th, but I can't guarantee I'll manage it. I do promise I'll be posting from the road, reporting on each nutty person and place along the way. Watch this space for updates!

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22 Comments
Connie Mayse
2/28/2023 05:43:15 pm

Great story, Karen!

Reply
Karen K McCann
2/28/2023 06:52:55 pm

Thanks, Connie! I've been hearing about Lonnie's progress, and lack of progress, for years now. It's so exciting that his request has finally — finally! — been consedido (granted). Cause for celebration indeed.

Reply
Tobey Hiller
2/28/2023 05:58:11 pm

Beautiful story. Persistence counts, but this was epic’ (I am familiar with Apostilles.)
Have a great nut-filled tour!
Tobey

Reply
Karen K McCann
2/28/2023 06:54:45 pm

Thanks, Tobey. I'm so glad you liked the story. It was an epic battle and I give Lonnie a lot of credit for his persistence and sheer grit in the face of so many obstacles. As for the Nutters Tour, Rich and I are really getting excited to think it's about to happen at last! I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Reply
Elizabeth Garcia
2/28/2023 07:19:49 pm

As a child I had a neighbor who was a Spanish Jew. Elisa was her name. I learned her history and it intrigued me. Her family left Spain for Greece and then Turkey. Eventually to the USA. I learned so much from her while she took care of me. My mother worked and Elisa loved spending time with me.
She spoke Hebrew, Turkish, Spanish, and English. Her life was a treasure trove of different cultures. I learned to eat different foods.
I learned of different religions. I learned of different experiences.
This writing of Lonnie took me back to my childhood.
I lived in Brooklyn by the way. Thank you!

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/1/2023 09:38:27 am

How lucky you were, Elizabeth, to have Elisa for a neighbor and careperson. She sounds like a wonderful woman with a richly diverse heritage — as you say, a treasure trove of different cultures, which she generously passed on to you. No wonder you resonated with Lonnie's story!

Reply
Alicia Bay Laurel link
2/28/2023 09:39:56 pm

I have been working with a professor of Sephardic history at the University of Jerusalem to track my mother's family's Sephardic roots. The National Geographic Genographic Project's saliva test states I am 88% Jewish Diaspora and 12% south western European. My late cousin Jules Duga gave an oral history to the Ohio Jewish Historical Society stating that his surname is Sephardic. I introduced him to the professor, who was impressed, and began looking for variations of that name in European records of the past 500 + years. I think we're getting close. The pandemic shut our project down for 3 years, but we're back at it again.

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/1/2023 09:43:37 am

You are on an exciting quest, Alicia. I was most interested in the DNA results; Lonnie always points out there was lots of intermingling back in the day (and now too, of course) so the bloodlines reflect that. Good luck with your research; as Lonnie's story demonstrates, persistence is the key. And now that the pandemic delays are slowly clearing up, I hope you'll make great progress. Let me know how it goes!

Reply
Scott Thomas
2/28/2023 10:10:34 pm

Lovely story, Karen. I'm happy for Lonnie and his family.

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/1/2023 09:44:30 am

Thanks, Scott. It's exciting for Lonnie and his family, and those of us who have followed his progress for years are rejoicing on their behalf.

Reply
Shéa MacLeod link
3/1/2023 02:05:04 am

I am so pleased for Lonnie! What a wonderful story of connection and perseverance.

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/1/2023 09:46:03 am

I was gobsmacked when Lonnie told me the news. It had sounded like the process was permanently stalled, as only bureaucrats can do. It just shows it really is never over till it's over.

Reply
Phyllis Thomas
3/1/2023 05:22:48 pm

I loved this story. I can totally understand the bureaucracy blockages and so glad there was finally success. And the bonus was a whole family branch that had been searching for him!

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/1/2023 06:09:31 pm

Yes, it was really a roller-coaster ride for Lonnie and all his family. And I'm delighted to report the happy ending. So glad you enjoyed the story, Phyllis!

Reply
Mary Luti
3/1/2023 06:09:52 pm

I've read tons about the government's extension of citizenship to descendants of expelled Jews and about the bureaucratic mess people encounter trying to obtain it, but this story put a face and a name on it all. So glad for Lonnie, hopeful for many others. Thanks for a great post! (Splendid photos, too!)

One note about the caption to your photo of the Callejón: I'm not sure where the idea that the Inquisition in Seville dragged victims down to the river to drown them may have come from, but that was never the case. Inquisition officials (and Church officials generally) were not permitted to spill blood or kill anyone. A condemned person was always “relaxed” to the civil authorities who were the only ones who could carry out a death sentence.

The Inquisition was a methodical organization, professional, efficient, rule-bound and rule-abiding, and scrupulous about record-keeping. It was not undisciplined in any way, despite its modern reputation as a ruthless and bloodthirsty bunch of fanatics. It’s extraordinarily unlikely that they would have dragged anyone down an alleyway and thrown them in the river. Besides, the methods of execution in use during the Inquisition long history did not include drowning but were limited to hanging (or garroting) and burning, and everything related to sentencing and execution was done ceremoniously in public.

The Callejón de la Inquisición was simply the alleyway along which the accused were led to enter the castle’s jail or were led out of the jail to be taken across to the Plaza de San Francisco for the auto-da-fe and formal announcement of their sentences.

Sorry if this is TMI or overly pedantic.(And not defending the Inquisition by any means, just trying not to make the Leyenda Negra any more Negra!)

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/2/2023 07:58:21 am

Thanks for the clarification, Mary. In an ancient city like this, it's always difficult to untangle fact from fiction or to determine just how much whitewashing, overdramatizing, or rewriting of history has occurred in any era.

The oft-told local legend of the alley includes stories of victims of the Inquisition — tortured and either dead or half dead — being dragged down that alley and tossed into the river. Whether that was by the inquisitors or government officials isn't usually specified. There are also tales of local heroes pulling them out of the water for burial or to be nursed back to health. Many of these legends appear in books and articles, but of course, by their very nature, legends are not always reliable.

Whatever actually went on in that alley, and however scrupulously the Inquisition carried out its legal right to persecute Jews and Muslims, those were dark days indeed. And as Lonnie's story shows, the evil that was done during the Inquisition, which lasted until 1834, continues to echo down the centuries into modern times.

Reply
Faye
3/2/2023 05:42:56 am

So very happy for Lonnie! What an amazing journey he has had! A tragic and sad story but with such a beautiful ending!

Thanks for the photos, too, Karen That make it all so real for us!

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/2/2023 08:04:20 am

I'm so glad you liked the story, Faye. Yes, it's a tragic, moving, and ultimately inspiring tale. And the photos provided by Lonnie really bring it all to life. What a journey!

Reply
Kim Battisti
3/2/2023 05:54:53 pm

What a crusader Lonnie has been. I,too, have two grandparents who independently emigrated from Malaga and Rio Gordo with their parents on the USSHeliopolis in 1907, to cultivate and farm sugarcane for the US. All of the islands participated in this emigration from the port of Malaga, and I have proof of their journey, the signed manifesto, the work order of my grandfather, US paperwork, buy not the Spanish birth records.
I visited my grandfather’s town if Benegalbon in 2006 and saw his name and siblings in the baptism book in the rectory , and know the page he’s in. My great grandmother was an orphan in Rio Gordo and the offices were closed so we couldn’t get far there.

I read about the possibility of attaining a Spanish passport , and have been contacted by a UK law firm in regards to getting it done for $6000. I wonder if this expenses is necessary and if I am able to get a passport if my great grandparents and grand parents became US citizens ?

I speak conversational
Spanish but would love to speak English with someone connected to this legal process so I can obtain the required records . Can Lonnie help with that website or best approach to get this ball going? It’s a grueling process but I feel I have most of the info of their immigration details.

Btw, I was in Seville in May 2022 during the crazy Euro Cup and loved it!
Thanks for this !

Reply
Karen K McCann
3/6/2023 07:18:08 am

Kim, it sounds like you're embarking on an exciting journey. As you can tell from Lonnie's story, the paperwork can be extensive and time-consuming, but it is possible to work your way through it. You have a great head start with the records you've collected already.

Expert advice can speed up the process and give you a better shot at success. I was stunned by the $6000 fee, which seems quite excessive. I would start by Googling immigration lawyers specializing in Spain; you might find them in London or in Spain. Explain the situation, ask about the process, and get estimates.

Lonnie says he's happy to help if he can; please send me your email address and I'll provide his contact info. My email: enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com.

Good luck!

Reply
Niko Sinodinos
3/14/2023 03:49:33 am

I would start with the Spanish Consulate for your area, their website, see what they require. Get all the documents you can stateside, email the municipalities for docs, with close year of birth, death, marriage.

Reply
Leon Menache
3/7/2023 11:47:48 am

I Loved it. Abrazos de la famía de Brasil. Estamos todos en djunto.

Reply



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