The '100% Jewish Ceuta' Hoax: 300 Residents Out of 85,000

The Jewish Ceuta Hoax: 300 Residents and 85,000 Inhabitants

Ceuta is not a Jewish territory. Around 300 people of Jewish faith live in the autonomous city, out of approximately 85,000 inhabitants. What does exist is a trickle of institutional congratulations for Hanukkah. And that's where the short circuit begins: someone decided to interpret protocol courtesy as proof of a conspiracy.

From a Hanukkah Greeting to the '100% Jewish Ceuta' Hoax

The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, has participated in the candle lighting and described the festival as part of the city's essence. The vice-president of the Ceuta government congratulated the community in 2021. Civil Protection joined with a message. The local PSOE wished a 'happy Hanukkah' to the Hebrew community. And in Melilla, both the PP and PSOE did the same.

All these messages are protocol greetings. Nothing more. The hoax's mechanism consists of taking acts of courtesy and presenting them as evidence of hidden control. It's a pattern as old as time, and it doesn't withstand comparison with the numbers.

Melilla's PP: Twenty Mentions of 'Jewish' and Two of 'Catholic'

The most repeated argument compares the institutional treatment of different faiths. A count of the PP of Melilla's X (formerly Twitter) posts finds two mentions of the word 'Catholic' and twenty of the word 'Jewish'. From this, the conclusion is drawn that there is disproportionate flattery towards a minority of 300 people. It's an interpretation, not a finding. And those who hold it admit that, without a Jewish community, institutions would do the same.

Ceuta's Hanukkah will once again have an institutional photo every December. And every December, there will be those who see a conspiracy in it. The numbers, meanwhile, don't change: three hundred residents, eighty-five thousand inhabitants, and a theory that doesn't add up anywhere.