before the debates over the bill continued to second reading on 20 December 1940, a ship carrying 326 Bulgarian Jewish and other Jewish refugees heading to British-administered Palestine, the Salvador, was wrecked in the Sea of Marmara on 14 December with 230 lives lost. Of the 160 seats in the National Assembly, a majority of between 115 and 121 members voted with the government. The parliament ratified the bill on Christmas Eve, 1940. It received royal assent from Tsar Boris III on 15 January the following year, being published in the State Gazette on 23 January 1941. After April 1941, the Law's jurisdiction was extended beyond Bulgaria's pre-war borders to territories in Greece and Yugoslavia occupied by the Bulgarian army and claimed and administered by Bulgaria. Opposition Although anti-Jewish measures were seen as supporting the aim of Bulgaria's territorial expansion via closer with alignment to Germany among politicians and the royal court of Tsar Boris, the bill's announcement in October 1940 divided opinion among Bulgarian society and elite. Opponents argued that the bill's text violated equality before the law, that the Jewish minority of Bulgaria posed no "threat to national security" as alleged by its proponents, and that the legislation was in any case immoral, invoking the "national tolerance" of Bulgarians. Objections were instantly raised, and numerous open letters, petitions, and demands for audiences with the Tsar and Prime Minister Bogdan Filov were lodged. The Central Consistory of Jews in Bulgaria led opposition, alongside senior clerics of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Professional organizations, notably the unions of lawyers, doctors, and writers were opposed. The prominent journalist Dimo Kazasov and many other ordinary voters and workers submitted protests. Political opposition came from the jurist and ex-PM Nikola Mušanov, ex-minister, diplomat and law professor Petko Stajnov, and from Communist members of parliament Ljuben Djugmedžiev and Todor Poljakov. Member of the ruling majority Ivan Petrov lobbied against his government. Jewish leaders protested against the law, and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, some professional organizations, and twenty-one writers also opposed it. Consequences Citizens of Jewish origin were also banned from certain public areas, restricted economically, and marriages between Jews and Bulgarians were prohibited. Jews were forced to pay a one-time tax of 20 percent of their net worth. The legislation also established quotas that limited the number of Jews in Bulgarian universities. The Law for the Protection of the Nation stipulated that Jews fulfil their