by Yitzchak Kerem
For Zion's sake I shall not
remain quiet, for Jerusalem's sake I shall not remain silent.
Isaiah 62:1
Portugal and Madeira
On August 19 1994,
Haim Shapiro described in the "Jerusalem Post", an ancient and secret
Yom Kippur ritual still practised by Marrano families in northern Portugal.
Women gather together and braid oil wicks while reciting 73 blessings, possibly
corresponding to the number of names of G-d. This practise is quoted in the
Shulhan Aruch. In addition to Belmonte and Oporto celebrations were held in
Guarda for 600 crypto-Jewish families who live in the Portuguese towns of
Fundao, Pinhei, Meda, Traconso, Idanha, Panamacor and Vilarinho dos Galigos, as
well as in the Spanish provence of Galicia.
Even though the
crypto-Jews of Belmonte have come out of hiding, other communities such as
Tomar, still maintain secret Jewish lives and rituals; both personally and
communally.
Ayre Hazary has
published a lengthy survey of the crypto-Jewish community of the Portuguese
island of Madeira, located in the Atlantic Oceon off the northwest coast of
Africa, where his maternal great-grandparents came from. He conveyed reports of
secluded candlelighting by at least three crypto-Jewish families there. They
circumcise their new-born sons on the eighth day, observe the Sabbath, buy
kasher meat from the Jewish community in Lisbon, and fast on Yom Kippur and the
Fast of Esther. Though they wear gold crosses round their necks, they are practicing
Jews.The names of Hazary's maternal grandmother and great-grandmother were
Gomes and Correira, names found in documents in Madeira today. Tito Benady, af
historian from Gibraltar Jewry, noted that when some 200 Jews from Gibraltar
were evacuated as non=combatants to Funchal, Madeira, at the start of WW2, they
found a Jewish cemetery that belonged to the Abudarham family. The same family
after whom the synagogue in Gibraltar was named.
The famous Menasseh
ben Israel was born in Madeira. Cecil Roth wrote that his original
crypto-Jewish name was Manuel Dias Soeiro.The family moved to La Rochelle and
ultimately settled in Amsterdam. There Menasseh became the famous leader and
rabbi of the Sephardic community and its representative to local non-Jewish intellectuals.
He married a daughter of the branch of the Abravanel family trapped in Portugal
and who had undergone forced conversion. Menasseh ben Israel is mainly renowned
for persuading Cromwell to readmit the Jews into England in 1655.
The practice of medicine
as well as the secret practice of Judaism remained in family.Dr Luis Gomes de
Madeiros reached Amsterdam, reverted to Judaism and reclaimed the ancient
Jewish name for himself and his children.One of Menasseh ben Israel's
brother-in-laws however, remained unconverted and became the a known poet in
Madeira.Frieda Wolf wrote in 'Avontaynu' ----- "still in our century,
children enlisted in school on this extremely Catholic island had to show their
certificate of baptism to be accepted, this being the consequence of the many
New Christians and Judaizers who had lived there". Anita Novinsky, an
historian from Brazil, who has extensively researched the connection between
Madeira and the Inquisition, also wrote; "Madeira, the Azores and the islands
of the Atlantic were in great part settled by converted Jews."
Sao Tome and Principe
The Jewish history of
Sao Tome and Principe, two small islands off the west coast of African Guinea,
is one of tragedy, but also of Jewish continuity. In 1493, one year after many
Jews were expelled from Spain and three years before the 'expulsion' from
Portugal, King Manuel of Portugal, in seeking funds to finance his program of
colonial expansion, imposed huge poll taxes upon the Jews.They were ordered to
pay within a short period, and were threatened with fines if they failed to do
so.
King Manuel wanted to
colonize the islands of Sao Tome and Principe in order "to whiten the
race" as he put it.The Portuguese did not want to settle in the fever and
crocodile infested islands. When it was clear that the majority of the Jews
could not pay the tax demanded, the king deported Jewish children aged 2 to 10
years of age to Sao Tome and Principe. In the port of Lisbon, no fewer than
2,000 children were torn from their parents and herded onto boats as slaves.
This was reported by Rabbi Samuel Usque in his book "Tribulations of
Israel". Within a year only 600 children remained alive. Usque recorded
that when parents of children saw that the deportation was inevitable, they
impressed on the children to keep the laws of Moses; some even married them off
to each other.
Gloria Mound notes
that the entreaties of th parents were apparently not in vain, as reports
reached the Office of the Inquisition in Lisbon that in Sao Tome there were
incidents of open Jewish observance.The local church was greatly incensed. The
bishop Pedro da Cuhna Lobo, appointed in 1616, became obsessed with the
problem. According to an historical source, on Simchat Torah 1621, he was
awakened by a procession, rushed out to confront it, but was booed by the
demonstrators. In disgust he gave up and took the next ship back to Portugal.
In the 19th and 20th
centuries, there was a small influx of Jewish cocoa and sugar traders to the
islands; two of them are buried in the Sao Tome cemetery. The islands obtained
independence from Portugal on July 12th, 1975. In 1993 Israel's first Ambassador,
Dr Moshe Liba, was warmly received there. He found that "the descendants
of the child slaves were still a very distinctive section of the population (
because of their lighter skin), proud of their historic past and desirous of
contact with Jews outside." Some Jewish customs had been maintained,
although they are now greatly mixed with components of Creole societal values
and cultural customs.
In order to
commemorate the children who were torn from their parents in the 15th century,
an international conference was held to coincide with the island's twentieth
Independence Day, on July 12th 1995. Participants attended from Israel, the US,
France, Holland, Portugal and Spain. Hopefully, that joint sponsorship will
further studies in this area. In Casa Shalom Institute for Marrano and Anousim
Studies in Gan Yavneh, Israel, there are 571 pages of archival material that
deal solely with the Jews of Sao Tome.
Notes;
1) Gloria Mound,
"Continuing Jewish Customs and Folklore in Ibiza and
Formentera".Proceedings of
the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish
Studies, Division D, Vol 11; Art, Folklore and Music
(Jerusalem; World Union of Jewish Studies,
1994) 143 - 150.
2) Haim Shapiro,
"Lies my Ancestors Told Me", The Jerusalem Post, August 19,1994, 10 -
12.
3) Gloria Mound,
"Judaic Research Continues in Balearic Islands and Sao Tome."
Published by
"Yichus" vol 3 issue no 3 & 4
reprinted by
permission
and "Sharsheret
Hadorot" Vol.12, no.1.
Fuente: https://web.archive.org/web/20110317220800/http://www.saudades.org/portcrypto.html
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