A man from Haifa will become the first Israeli to be granted Spanish citizenship under a new law that grants descendants of Jews forced out the during the Spanish Inquisition the right to take up dual citizenship.

Before he could claim his new passport, he had to answer questions such as ‘who is the author of Don Quixote?’, ‘what is Spain’s tallest mountain?’ – and ‘who is Penelope Cruz?’

Forty-year-old Yossi Ben Naim completed his exams this week and is awaiting an invitation from the Spanish embassy in Tel Aviv to receive his new passport. Mr Ben Naim had to pass a Spanish language exam and a history and general knowledge test, and had to trace his ancestry back to his family’s expulsion from Spain in the 15th century.

Mr Ben Naim is the first Israeli to complete this application process, after a law was passed in June 2015 allowing descendants of Jews expelled in 1492 to apply for a Spanish passport.

His family settled in the northern Morocco town of Tétouan, a Spanish protectorate from 1912 to 1956, before moving to Israel in the 1950s and 1970s. However, Mr Ben Naim says that his family spoke Spanish at home.

During the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, all 300,000 Jews in Spain were forced to convert or leave, and thousands were killed. Under the previous 1924 law, the Spanish government had discretionary powers to award Sephardim nationality but candidates had to be residents of Spain and were obliged to give up their previous citizenship, while the new law offers dual citizenship.