LADINA

2011-11-10T00:53:00.126Z

THE PORTUGUESE DREYFUS,Captain BARROS
BASTO (BEN ROSH)

Request to the National Assembly (Parliament)

for rehabilitation

(Submitted on October 31, 2011)

(ENGLISH TRANSLATION by mlopesazevedo)

Honourable First Lady, President of the Assembly

Subject: Request for the re-instatement in the Army of captain Arthur Carlos Barros Basto of the infantry, who was the victim of political-religious segregation in the year 1937.

The present petition is based on the grave violation of human rights and the intolerable violation of the core of fundamental rights materially protected by the constitution of the Portuguese Republic which requires the intervention of the Parliamentary commission for constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees for the following reasons:

1. At a time when anti-Semitism reigned throughout Europe, when millions of human beings were led like cattle to the slaughterhouse, in Portugal, an army officer, Arthur Carlos Barros Basto, was sanctioned for being a Jew and practicing the Jewish religion.

2. As a result, on June 12, 1937, in the disciplinary matter of case no.o. 6 / 1937, the Superior Disciplinary Council of the Army (itself an organ of a regime of personal power) ruled as proven that Arthur Carlos Barros Basto, "performed the operation of circumcision of

several students (of the Israeli Theological Institute of Porto) pursuant to a precept of the Israeli religion he professes", and who, " took attitudes of exaggerated interest and intimacy in students, kissing them and caressing them frequently " (the image of the Sephardic Jews of Tangier, where the victim returned to Judaism) - cf. Document No. 1.

3. In light of these proven facts, the Superior Disciplinary Council of the Army found that Arthur Carlos Barros Basto did not have the, "moral capacity" for the prestige of his function and the decorum of his uniform, thereby punishing him with "separation from service" provided in Article 178 of the Rules of Military Discipline, published by Decree 16:963, on June 15, 1929.

4. The "separation from service" truly constituted for Arthur Carlos Barros Basto (the officer and the Jew) a civil death penalty. The victim was definitively suspended from performing his duties, was definitively impeded from pursuing his career, was definitively banned from wearing his uniform, badges and military insignia, and was forced to forever remain subject to disciplinary action of the Army (in other words, was forced to maintain his civilian life and religious practice forever shaped by military rules absolutely hostile to the most basic Jewish precepts), under penalty of being re-tried, and re-convicted!

5. The facts that the Superior Disciplinary Council of the Army considered 'proven' (and which led to a finding of "moral incapacity" and consequent "separation from service" of the Jewish soldier Arthur Carlos Barros Basto) fall squarely whithin the universally accepted rights of all humans which existed before they were "proclaimed".

6. Moreover, the decision of Superior Disciplinary Council of the Army, in total contrast with Dinim norms that flow from primordial tradition, impedes anyone, no matter who, to understand how the judges reached the degree of certainty that they supposedly achieved in relation to the facts they considered proven. It is a decision without any basis, which does not critically examine the means of proof of evidence that was considered or disregarded, and culminates in the censure of Arthur Carlos Barros Basto for not pursuing the person who denounced him.

7. April 25* may have corrected many injustices of the past, but at least one man was forgotten, Arthur Carlos Barros Basto. The Jew was forgotten.

In 1975 Lea Montero Azancot Barros Basto (widow of Arthur Carlos Barros Basto) presented a request for the reinstatement of her deceased husband in the Army, but she received a negative response from the General Staff of the Armed Forces; who, regarding the decision of 1937, and in such an unbelievable manner, CONFUSED the facts "not proven unanimously", with the facts "proven ", thereby adding to the illegality previously committed, another more scandalous one. - Cf. Documents paragraphs no. 2 and 3.

By these means,

the undersigned requests that the Assembly of the Republic proceed to re-integrate her grandfather, Arthur Carlos Barros Basto into the ranks of the Army, having guiding support

(far beyond Decree-Law No. 173/74 of April 26, applicable to the instant case by reason of "a maiori, ad minus") , from the moral and imprescriptible duty of the state to remedy such a serious violation of international law. "Adonai li vero ira"

Attached: power of attorney and three documents.

Isabel Maria de Barros Teixeira da Silva Ferreira Lopes

(Granddaughter of Charles Arthur Barros Basto)

Rui da Silva Leal (Lawyer)

(*The Carnation revolution, April 25, 1974, translator's note)

(See Portuguese version below, and more articles about the Captain)

UPDATES

OPEN HOUSE, DECEMBER 18, 2011, PORTO KADOORIE SYANGOGUE

See award winning author Richard Zimler's plea in The Jewish Chronicle.

http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/60392/portuguese-hero-still-awaiting-justice

2011-11-08T12:28:00.022Z

Captain Barros Basto
the Portuguese Dreyfus

by manuel lopes azevedo
(November 15, 2006)

In 1497 the Sephardic Jews of Portugal ceased to exist. They were all ordered to be baptized by the King who promised the ‘New Christians” that there would be no inquiry into their private religious practices for 20 years (later extended). Secretly observing the essential rituals of Judaism, the New Christians maintained their Marrano (secret Jew, in Hebrew, “anousim”, for “forced one”) identity for over 300 years despite relentless persecution by the Inquisition. Thousands were tortured and/or burned alive. The national archives of Portugal, “Torre de Tombo” contains over 40,000 Inquisition files.

In the 1920s, Captain Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto, a decorated Portuguese WW1 veteran who survived gas attacks in Flanders, began a quasi-messianic movement in northern Portugal to “out” Marranos and bring them back to normative Judaism. Basto, a free mason and Republican was informed of his family’s Marrano heritage by his grandfather who announced on his deathbed that he wished to die as a Jew. Basto honoured his grandfather’s message for the rest of his life. He taught himself Hebrew, becoming so proficient that he later taught it at the faculty of Arts at the University of Porto where he also conducted original research into Portuguese medieval Jewish history. Later, he traveled to Tangiers to undergo a formal return process to Judaism. Returning to Lisbon, he married the daughter of a prominent Jewish family of that community which initially had rejected him. He then settled down in Porto, near Amarante, his place of birth, to raise a family and start his building his dream.

Basto’s mission attracted wide support from Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, New York, and London (whose ancestors had escaped the clutches of the Inquisition). The London Marranos Committee and the Spanish Portuguese congregation of Bevis Marks, England’s oldest synagogue, provided moral and financial support. Prominent English Jews such as journalist and founder of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Lucien Wolf, Cambridge professor and respected author, Cecil Roth and lawyer Paul Goodman (also president of the London Marranos Committee), became friends and fans. Dr. Rabbi David Sola Pool of New York visited Basto.

Visiting isolated villages and towns, sometime by foot and donkey, the charismatic Captain, dressed in full regalia, convinced thousands of Marranos to give up their syncretism and return openly to the faith of their ancestors. He led the revival of normative rituals and established synagogues in several towns and cities, despite protests from the Catholic Church.

In Porto, a city with a strong mercantile Jewish tradition (birthplace of the world’s first secular Jew, Uriel da Costa, Spinoza’s predecessor) Barros Basto established a yeshiva (theological institute) and founded an instructional Jewish newspaper, “Halapid” (the “Torch”) which he published until 1958. At the height of the depression, with the financial backing of Baron de Rothschild of Paris and the wealthy Kadoorie family of Hong Kong, Barros Basto built a magnificent four-storey art deco synagogue, which he called the “Cathedral of the North”, a beacon for the downtrodden Marranos. The Kadoorie synagogue of Porto (Mekor Haim, Hebrew for “font of life) was inaugurated in 1938, the same year as Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass” when synagogues and Jewish businesses were ransacked and destroyed throughout Germany. During the ensuing war, Barros Basto helped many families fleeing the Holocaust.

It was all too much for Portugal’s staunch Catholic neo-fascist state, Salazar’s “Estado Novo” (New State). Relying on “anonymous” complaints and internal intrigue, Salazar’s dictatorship engineered the Captain’s downfall. Although Barros Basto was cleared by civil and military authorities of trumped up charges, Salazar’s fascist ministers condemned him for carrying out alleged circumcisions and stripped him of his military commission, prohibiting him from wearing his uniform on the basis that he lacked the moral capacity to continue his military career. This led to a collapse of the renaissance movement that Barros Basto had started. The very people he had championed shunned him. He fell into disgrace and died a broken man in 1961. The inquisition had not disappeared, it simply had adapted. Marranos once again withdrew into the world of secrecy.

Following Portugal’s peaceful carnation revolution of 1974, which toppled Europe’s longest dictatorship, Basto’s family sought to clear his name. Despite promises to do so, the military and politicians continue to stonewall all efforts to rehabilitate the Captain. Now, with the renaissance of Marrano identity, and the re-birth of the “Cathedral of the North” following a visit by the Sephardic grand rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar in 2004, the Captain is once again a hero. But, unlike Dreyfus, he has yet to been exonerated. Hopefully, he will indeed be the next Dreyfus.

FROM 2007

2007/08/08

BARROS BASTO, THE MARRANO MIRAGE, by Alexandre Teixeira Mendes

A NEW VISION OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE APOSTLE OF THE MARRANOS

Official book launch, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2007, 18.30 at Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue, Rua Guerra Junqueiro, 340, Porto, Portugal
BARROS BASTO, THE MARRANO MIRAGE
Alexandre Teixeira Mendes, Ladina Books, Porto 2007

Book Synopsis on Back Cover by Pedro Sinde
(English translation by mlopesazevedo)

This book reveals Barros Basto and the Marrano question. Written in a hide
and seek style, it seems to play with the reader, leading him or her to
gradually begin to understand for themselves the author’s thinking. It is not an objective book, in that it is a book with a soul, a passionate book, and impassioned. Only those without a soul are capable of transforming the subject of their study into the object. Alexandre Teixeira Mendes, on the contrary transforms the object of his study into the subject; it is thus that Barros Basto, the Apostle of the Marranos, seems alive, contradictory, honest, a hero that struggled to rescue the Marranos, that is, those Jews who during four centuries concealed themselves, passing and re-creating, from generation to generation, a tradition that could not be expressed in the light of day; night was their day!
We see Barros Basto in the horizon, standing in a struggle against two giants, the Catholic Church and the Jewish “Church”, a David against two Goliaths. We see him give the signal to gather the dispersed ones.
Alexandre Teixeira Mendes does not examine Barros Basto from the outside; he accompanies him in his youth, in his conversion, during the war, in the organization of the mysterious Orymita Institute, in the work of rescue. And we, his readers, accompany him in an unforgettable journey to one of the most important places of the soul of the Portuguese being that only Sampaio Bruno and Antonio Telmo have studied with the same audacity and freedom that we now encounter in the author of this book.

Pedro Sinde

Cry justice for the 'Portuguese Dreyfus',

by Michael Freund(2003)

A few months ago, in the northern Portuguese village of Amarante, I stood before the simple and unadorned grave of a largely forgotten Jewish hero of the 20th century, Captain Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto.
His name might not be familiar to you, but his story is worth recounting, nonetheless, because it is one of heartbreak and heroism, and its final chapter remains to be written.
Historians such as the late Cecil Roth labeled him the 'Portuguese Dreyfus' after French General Staff officer Alfred Dreyfus, who was convicted of treason on trumped-up charges in 1894 and drummed out of the military.But in one important respect Barros Basto's story is even more compelling, because, unlike his French counterpart, he has yet to receive the exoneration and acclaim he so richly deserves.
This year marks six decades since the Portuguese armed forces summarily decided to expel Barros Basto from their ranks, citing unspecified reasons of "good and welfare" for its decision.
The truth of the incident is far more troubling.
Captain Barros Basto was one of the Anousim, a descendant of Jews whose ancestors had been forced to convert to Catholicism during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. According to hisbiographers, Dr. Elvira Mea and journalist Inacio Steinhardt,Barros Basto was a decorated soldier who commanded a Portuguese infantry company in World War I, fought in the trenches of Flanders, and took part in the allied offensive to liberate Belgium.
After returning home from the war he decided to embrace the faith of his forefathers, and underwent a formal return to Judaism before a rabbinical court in Spanish Morocco in December 1920.
Based in the northern Portuguese city of Oporto, Barros Basto launched a public campaign to convince other Anousim to emerge from centuries of hiding and rejoin their people. This dashing war hero traveled among the villages and towns of the area, bedecked in his military uniform, holding Jewish services and seeking to inspire others to follow his example.
He succeeded in building the beautiful Mekor Haim synagogue, which still stands in Oporto, and opened a yeshiva that operated for nine years, teaching young Anousim about their heritage. Singlehandedly he produced a Jewish newspaper and was responsible for the publication of numerous books on Jewish history, law and lore in Portuguese.
But his open profession of Judaism, and the thousands of people whom historians say he inspired, did not sit well with the government, or the Church authorities of the time. They sought to quell his nascent movement by bringing false charges of moral debauchery against him.
Though the local prosecutor filed charges against Barros Basto, the case was dropped after two years, in 1937, for lack of evidence. Nevertheless, in 1943, Portugal's Ministry of Defense expelled him from the army, unjustly humiliating him and bringing about an end to his efforts to reawaken Portugal's Anousim.
He died in 1961, a broken man.
And so, whereas Dreyfus was eventually pardoned in 1899 and restored to the French army in 1906 with full honors, Barros Basto went to the grave without justice ever being served.
When I first learned of his story on a visit to Portugal last fall, I was livid with rage. How could it be that so many years have passed without the injustice done to this valiant, heroic figure being rectified? And so, earlier this year I launched a public campaign under the auspices of Amishav, the organization I direct in Jerusalem, seeking to persuade the Portuguese government to clear Capt. Barros Basto's name.
In a meeting with the Portuguese ambassador to Tel Aviv I asked that his government acknowledge Barros Basto's innocence and apologize for the hurt this chapter has caused to both his family and the Jewish people. Similar appeals were sent to the Portuguese government and its representatives abroad.
American Jewish organizations such as the Conference of Presidents, the Orthodox Union and the Religious Zionists of America have all joined the campaign, writing to the Portuguese ambassador to Washington about the Barros Basto case.
And US Congressman Gary Ackerman, a member of the House International Relations Committee, has also spoken out, urging the Portuguese to resolve the matter.
Thus far, however, there has not been any progress. The stain on this noble man's name has yet to be removed.
In a time when Israel finds itself targeted by terror it may seem incongruous to be concerning ourselves with such a symbolic cause. But symbols still have meaning, and it is incumbent upon us to do whatever we can to right this historical wrong.
Barros Basto was a courageous figure who stood up for the Jewish people, defying the powers that be to help his brethren. When anti-Semitism victimizes such a person, be it in 1943 or 2003, how can we possibly remain silent?
More pressure must be brought to bear on the Portuguese government to address this matter, and so the issue may be laid to rest once and for all. Contact your local Portuguese embassy or write to Portugal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs at: inf-imprensa@mne.gov.pt and ask them why they have not yet resolved this important case.
Captain Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto risked his career and reputation on behalf of his people, the Jewish people. The least we can do in return is see that the dignity so unjustly taken away from him is restored.
_______________________________________________________

From jpost.com
(http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=245853)

Photo by: Courtesy of Shavel Israel

Time to rehabilitate Portugal’s Dreyfus

By MICHAEL FREUND
11/16/2011 22:57

Fundamentally Freund: Barros Basto was drummed out of the military for the ‘crime’ of circumcising his students.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of an unsung Jewish hero, Captain Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto.

His exploits extended from the battlefields of World War I to the struggle to reclaim crypto-Jewish identity, but this intrepid figure met a cruel and unwarranted end at the hands of Portugal’s dictatorial regime. Despite the passage of so many decades, the injustice committed against him cries out for resolution. The time has come to give this man his due.

Barros Basto came from a family of Bnei Anusim (whom historians refer to by the derogatory term “Marranos”), descendants of Jews whose ancestors had been forced to convert to Catholicism in the 15th century.

Raised a Catholic, he went on to become a decorated soldier who commanded a Portuguese infantry company in World War I, where he fought in the trenches of Flanders and took part in the allied offensive to liberate Belgium.

After the war Barros Basto decided to re-embrace the faith of his forefathers. He studied Judaism intensively, then traveled to Spanish Morocco in December 1920 to undergo a formal return to the Jewish people before a rabbinical court.

Back in Portugal, Barros Basto settled in the northern city of Oporto, where he launched a public campaign to persuade other Bnei Anusim to return to their roots. Donning hismilitary uniform and medals, he traveled among the towns and villages of Portugal’s interior, giving rousing speeches, conducting Jewish services and seeking to inspire others to follow his example. After centuries of hiding, thousands of Bnei Anusim answered his call and tentatively agreed to join his movement.

Barros Basto turned to world Jewry for help, and succeeded in raising the necessary funds to build the magnificent Mekor Haim synagogue, which still stands in Oporto. He opened a yeshiva that operated for nine years, where dozens of young Bnei Anusim learned about Jewish life and lore. He also single-handedly produced a Jewish newspaper, Halapid (the Torch), and was responsible for the publication of numerous books on Jewish history and law in Portuguese.

BUT HIS open identification with Judaism, and the thousands of people whom he touched, did not sit well with the government or with Church authorities. They sought to quell his nascent movement by bringing him up on charges connected to the practice of the Jewish religion. On June 12, 1937, the Superior Disciplinary Council of the Portuguese Army concluded that Barros Basto lacked the “moral capacity” to serve in its ranks.

And just what exactly was his “crime”?

Incredibly, the military council declared that Barros Basto had “performed the operation of circumcision of several students pursuant to a precept of the Israelite religion he professes” and said that he was excessively affectionate toward his pupils.

As a result, they summarily drummed him out of the armed forces, destroyed his career and sullied his name. This brought about an end to his efforts to reawaken Portugal’s Bnei Anusim, many of whom saw the treatment meted out to Barros Basto as a sign that the authorities would not tolerate their return to Judaism.

In 1961, he died, a broken man. Stripped of his rank and publicly humiliated because he was a Jew, Barros Basto has been likened by historians such as Cecil Roth to Alfred Dreyfus, the French general staff officer who was convicted of treason on trumped-up charges in 1894 and drummed out of the military.

But unlike Dreyfus, Barros Basto has yet to receive the exoneration he deserves. Once Portugal began its transition to democracy in 1975, his family appealed to the authorities to rectify the situation, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

For the past decade, Shavei Israel, the organization I chair, has been involved in the Barros Basto case.

Over the years, we elicited support from American Jewish organizations such as the Conference of Presidents, the Orthodox Union and the Religious Zionists of America, all of whom have written to the Portuguese ambassador to Washington about the matter.

Last month, on October 31, there was an important new development.

With the help of an attorney, the captain’s granddaughter, Isabel Maria de Barros Lopes, submitted a formal request to the president of the Portuguese parliament seeking her grandfather’s posthumous reinstatement into the military.

Isabel told me that she is determined to see things through. Just like her grandfather, she is not afraid to fight for what is right.

But more pressure must be brought to bear on Portuguese officials. Contact your local Portuguese embassy or sign the petition to the leader of the Portuguese parliament online at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/pardon-Capt-Barros-Basto/.

We must garner as much international support as possible to bring closure to this painful chapter.

Barros Basto was a courageous figure who stood up for the Jewish people, defying the powers that be to help his brethren. He was a victim of anti-Semitism, so how can we remain silent?

Several years ago, in the northern Portuguese village of Amarante, I entered the local cemetery and stood before Barros Basto’s simple and unadorned grave. Then and there, I made a promise to do what I could to restore his honor and bring about justice.

There is now an unprecedented opportunity to do so and we must not let it pass.

The stain on this noble man’s name is also a stain on Portugal itself, and it is time for it to be removed, once and for all.

Rehabilitate the Portuguese Dreyfus and let justice be done, so that his soul may finally rest in peace.

The writer is chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), an organization that assists lost tribes and hidden Jewish communities to return to the Jewish people.

FRENCH
__http://www.israel-flash.com/2011/11/portugal-il-est-temps-de-rehabiliter-le-dreyfus-portugais/#axzz1eBp6Cl3e

PORTUGUESE
http://affairedreyfusportugais.blogspot.com/2011/11/e-tempo-de-reabilitar-o-dreyfus-de.html__________________________________________________

PETITION TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

(Outubro 31, 2011)

Exm.ª Senhora
Presidente da Assembleia da República

Assunto: Pedido de reintegração no Exército do capitão de infantaria
Arthur Carlos Barros Basto, que foi alvo de segregação
político-religiosa no ano de 1937.

A presente petição tem como fundamento a violação grave de direitos
humanos e a afectação intolerável do núcleo duro dos direitos
fundamentais materialmente protegidos pela Constituição da República
Portuguesa, pelo que se requer a intervenção da Comissão Parlamentar
de Assuntos Constitucionais, Direitos, Liberdades e Garantias. Tudo
nos termos e pelas razões seguintes:

1. Numa época em que campeava o antissemitismo pela Europa e em que se
preparava o encaminhamento de milhões de seres humanos como reses a
caminho do matadouro, em Portugal, um oficial do Exército, Arthur
Carlos Barros Basto, foi sancionado por ser judeu e praticante da
religião judaica.

2. Com efeito, em 12 de Junho de 1937, no processo de natureza
disciplinar n.º 6/1937, o Conselho Superior de Disciplina do Exército
(um órgão próprio de um regime de poder pessoal) deu como provado que
Arthur Carlos Barros Basto «realizava a operação da circuncisão a
vários alunos [do Instituto Teológico Israelita do Porto] segundo um
preceito da religião israelita que professa», e que «tomava para com
os alunos atitudes de interesse e intimidade exageradas, beijando-os e
acarinhando-os frequentemente» (à imagem dos judeus sefarditas de
Tânger, onde o visado se converteu ao judaísmo) - cfr. Documento n.º 1

3. À luz destes factos provados, o Conselho Superior de Disciplina do
Exército considerou que Arthur Carlos Barros Basto não possuía
«capacidade moral» para prestígio da sua função e decoro da sua farda,
pelo que o puniu com a «separação de serviço» prevista no artigo 178.º
do Regulamento de Disciplina Militar, publicado pelo Decreto 16:963,
de 15 de Junho de 1929.

4. A «separação de serviço» constituiu para Arthur Carlos Barros Basto
(o oficial e o judeu) uma verdadeira pena de morte civil. O visado foi
afastado definitivamente das suas funções; foi impedido
definitivamente de progredir na carreira; foi proibido definitivamente
de usar uniformes, distintivos e insígnias militares; e foi obrigado a
manter-se para sempre subordinado à acção disciplinar do Exército (ou
seja, foi forçado a manter a sua vida civil e a sua prática religiosa
para sempre modeladas por regras militares absolutamente hostis aos
preceitos judaicos mais elementares), sob pena de voltar a ser
julgado, sob pena de voltar a ser condenado!

5. Os factos que o Conselho Superior de Disciplina do Exército
considerou «provados» (e que determinaram a «incapacidade moral» e a
consequente «separação do serviço» do militar judeu Arthur Carlos
Barros Basto) enquadram-se a todas as luzes no exercício de direitos
universalmente reconhecidos a todos os homens e que já existiam antes
de haverem sido “proclamados”.

6. Acresce que a decisão do Conselho Superior de Disciplina do
Exército – em tudo contrastante com a normação Dinim que promana da
tradição primordial – impede quem quer que seja de entender como
alcançaram os julgadores o grau de certeza que é suposto terem
conseguido em relação aos factos que consideraram provados.
Trata-se de uma decisão que não tem uma linha de fundamentação, que
não procede ao exame crítico dos meios de prova que foram considerados
e desconsiderados, e que chega ao cúmulo de censurar Arthur Carlos
Barros Basto por não ter espancado quem o denunciou.

7. O 25 de Abril pode ter reparado muitas injustiças do passado, mas
pelo menos um homem ficou esquecido. Ficou esquecido Arthur Carlos
Barros Basto. Ficou esquecido o judeu.
Lea Montero Azancot Barros Basto (viúva de Arthur Carlos Barros Basto)
apresentou, no ano de 1975, um pedido de reintegração do falecido
marido no Exército, mas obteve uma resposta negativa por parte do
Estado-Maior General das Forças Armadas, que, a respeito da decisão de
1937, e de modo inacreditável, CONFUNDIU os factos «não provados por
unanimidade» com os factos «provados», e anexou à ilegalidade
anteriormente cometida outra mais escandalosa. - cfr. Documentos n.ºs
2 e 3

Nesta confluência,

Vem a signatária requerer à Assembleia da República que proceda à
reintegração nas fileiras do Exército do senhor seu avô, Arthur Carlos
Barros Basto, tendo por espeque norteador (muito para além do
Decreto-Lei n.º 173/74, de 26 de Abril, aplicável ao caso por força do
argumento a maiori, ad minus) o dever moral e imprescritível do Estado
de reparar uma violação tão grave da Lei consuetudinária
internacional. Adonai li velo irá.

Juntam: Procuração e três documentos

Isabel Maria de Barros Teixeira da Silva Ferreira Lopes
(neta de Arthur Carlos Barros Basto)

Rui da Silva Leal
(advogado)
________________________________________________________________

RABBI LITVAK CALLS FOR ADJOURNMENT OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE BUDGET IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY PENDING THE REHABILITATION OF BARROS BASTO (BEN ROSH)

(November 14, 2011)

(Rabino israelita afirma que discussão do Orçamento deve esperar)

Todas as discussões do parlamento, incluindo a do Orçamento de Estado, só devem ter lugar depois de ser declarada a reabilitação de Barros Basto: o militar judeu que foi expulso do exército português em 1937 por praticar actos próprios da religião judaica.

A opinião é do rabino israelita Daniel Litvak, que se encontra de visita a Portugal. Aos jornalistas, o mestre da religião hebraica afirmou que “o parlamento português deve corrigir o mais rapidamente possível a decisão anti-semita que em 1937 vitimou Barros Basto, e só depois é que devem ser discutidos os outros temas, sejam eles quais forem, porque o mais importante de tudo é fazer Justiça”. Mostrando estar a par da actualidade portuguesa, o rabino acrescentou compreender a “preocupação dos deputados com o Orçamento do país mas os judeus esperam há mais de 500 anos que Portugal lhes faça Justiça. Esta é uma oportunidade”

Daniel Litvak fez questão de “recordar” que a sentença anti-semita do Estado Novo ainda produz efeitos muito graves na actualidade: “Essa sentença é uma afronta ao povo judeu no seu conjunto, mas também a toda a humanidade”.

A visita de Daniel Litvak – que é também rabino oficial do Porto – ao nosso país surge no momento em que o parlamento está a apreciar um pedido de reabilitação de Barros Basto interposto pela sua neta e subscrito pelo advogado Rui da Silva leal, representante da Ordem dos Advogados na última reforma penal.

O pedido, a que tivemos acesso, sublinha que o militar já deveria ter sido reabilitado em 1974: “O 25 de Abril pode ter reparado muitas injustiças do passado, mas pelo menos um homem ficou esquecido. Ficou esquecido Arthur Carlos Barros Basto. Ficou esquecido o judeu”.

De acordo com informações por nós recolhidas, Fernando Negrão, presidente da Comissão Parlamentar de Assuntos Constitucionais, Direitos, Liberdades e Garantias já terá declarado a urgência do processamento da resolução que poderá reabilitar Barros Basto.

Coverage in the Portuguese press (Lusa)

http://www.rtp.pt/noticias/?t=Organizacao-judia-internacional-lanca-peticao-para-reabilitar-o-capitao-Barros-Basto.rtp&article=502105&visual=3&layout=10&tm=8

http://aeiou.expresso.pt/exercito-organizacao-judia-internacional-lanca-peticao-para-reabilitar-o-capitao-barros-basto=f689465

http://noticias.sapo.pt/nacional/artigo/organizacao-judia-internacional-lanca-peticao-para-reabilitar-o-capitao-barros-basto_13383103.html

http://aeiou.visao.pt/exercito-organizacao-judia-internacional-lanca-peticao-para-reabilitar-o-capitao-barros-basto=f634885

http://www.cnoticias.net/?p=55785

http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?section_id=12&id_news=543530

http://www.netmadeira.com/noticias/sociedade/2011/11/22/organizacao-judia-internacional-lanca-peticao-para-reabilitar-o-capitao-barros-basto

Update-14 Dezembro, 2011

Petição para reabilitar capitão judeu aceite no Parlamento

Petição para reabilitar capitão judeu debatida no Parlamento

Parlamento discute caso Barros Basto

TSF: A jornalista Alexandra Nunes conversou com a neta do capitão Barros Basto

2011-11-08T11:54:00.000Z

An Algarve Jewish renaissance

(FROM JEWISH CHRONICLE-thejc.com)

By Susi Rogol Goodkind, November 7, 2011
Follow The JC on Twitter

Services in the sun

There are probably no more than 50 or 60 Jews resident in the Algarve today – expats from around the world, mainly, but of course hundreds more visit the region every year, attracted by the sunshine, the golf, the laid-back lifestyle and the charm of both its unspoilt inland villages and glitzy beach resorts.

It was the ambition of one man, South African Ralf Pinto, who had lived in the Algarve for more than 20 years, to bring the local Jews together. He developed a Jewish Heritage Centre in the region's capital, Faro, which has been visited by Jew and non-Jew alike; with his wife Judy he operated a communications network that got information out to a wide audience, and pulled visitors in to share special holidays and support the Centre.

Ralph Pinto died in August of this year but the legacy he left has inspired an astonishing turn of events.

A young American Rabbi, Zev Schwarcz, arrived in the Algarve with his wife and small child earlier in the summer. He met Ralf and was stirred by his dream because it was one he shared – of building a Jewish community where there was none before.

On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, for the first time in possibly a hundred years, the Algarve had a Rabbi, a Sefer Torah (on loan from the shul in Gibraltar), a shofar, a borrowed roof terrace in the sunshine for the service (motorway on one side, beach-goers on the street below), a Baal Tefilla from Edgware and a Cohen from upstate New York. An Israeli family, local restaurateurs, barbequed lunch for the 'congregation'.

For Kol Nidre, more than 30 people arrived on that roof terrace: a young couple from Mexico, Israelis with babes in arms, a man who lived nearby and had heard the shofar the previous week, an Italian judo teacher, a London lawyer, two nurses from Wales.

At Yizkor the following day, Rabbi Zev called out every single name of every single parent past. Not Prime ministers, not royalty. Just our mothers and fathers long gone. Later, we watched the stars come out and broke the fast with shared salads and herrings and promises. Suddenly 'should do' became 'want to.'

There is little doubt that those promises will be kept. The rooftop succah was overflowing – with people who had not been under a succah since their Barmitzvah year. And since the Holidays every Shabbat has welcomed more than a Minyan's worth of enthusiastic 'converts' – those who are rediscovering their heritage and delighting in it.

The now? An impromptu tea at the Shalom restaurant in Albufeira on Sunday saw more than an exchange of cake recipes, when some 45 Jewish residents of the Algarve and interested visitors gathered together to plan the next stages of community-building; for once good relations took precedent over golf.

The intention now is to raise funds and find premises for a shul and a Sefer Torah on permanent loan; to set up a centre for activities that will include Hebrew lessons and offer Bar- and Bat-mitzvah classes; to work with wedding planners and hotels and restaurants able to offer fully Kosher or Jewish celebrations; and, immediately, to arrange the first of two Chanukah parties, which will be publicised in the local newspapers and online with an open invitation to all Jews visiting the area. The dream that Ralf Pinto harboured all those years ago, will finally be realised.

2011-10-26T16:25:00.001Z

Portuguese Marranos and readmission of Jews to England
_______________________________________
Cromwell and the ‘readmission’ of the Jews to England, 1656

by Barbara Coulton, Lancaster University

(complete essay at http://www.olivercromwell.org/jews.pdf)

......What actually happened in 1656 was more prosaic, although some might have
interpreted events as the work of providence. The crypto-Jewish group had tacit
permission from Cromwell to worship privately, but their public persona was that of
Spanish merchants – and England was at war with Spain, so their goods could be
forfeit. An informer brought a case against one of the group, Antonio Robles, who
declared: ‘I am a Portuguese Jew’, in a petition in March for restitution of his goods;
this was granted by the Council in May. Investigations revealed that over twenty
Jewish families lived in London, many of them resident for years. In view of the
Robles affair, Carvajal and other leaders of the community, in conjunction for once
with Menasseh, presented a second petition to the Protector, from the ‘Hebrews at
Present Residing in this citty of London’; Abraham Israel Carvajal, Jahacob de
Caceres, and four others signed, after Menasseh ben Israel. Although this has been
claimed as the rabbi’s petition it did not echo that of November 1655; it was, rather, a
formal request by the crypto-Jewish group who thanked Cromwell for the favour 15
already granted, to worship privately in their own homes; they now prayed for
protection in writing; they also wished to acquire their own burial place outside the
city. Cromwell endorsed the Jews’ petition on 24 March, and again on 26 June, but
there is no record of written permission. Nevertheless, events prove that two
privileges were granted to the London group: permission for a religious meeting-place
and for a burial ground. A large house in Creechurch Lane became a private
synagogue; Carvajal was a leading ratepayer in the parish of St Katherine Cree; the
‘superior landlord’ was the master of Magdalene College, Cambridge – John Sadler.
The use to which the house was to be put was known to the parish authorities who
mentioned in their accounts for 1656 work ‘in building the Jewes Synagogue’.
Carvajal brought over from Hamburg a cousin, Moses Athias, to be chief minister or
hazan. By the beginning of 1657 Carvajal and Caceres (as wardens or parnassim of
the synagogue) had taken out a lease for a burial ground at Mile End. Apparently,
Menasseh had no role in this community; he came to feel friendless among strangers.
Some scholars have speculated about his personality. Cecil Roth described him as ‘the
self- important, erudite, quarrelsome Amsterdam Rabbi’. S.R. Gardiner was more
moderate in his description of the ‘enthusiastic but somewhat dreamy Amsterdam
rabbi and physician who took the cause of all Judaism upon his shoulders’; he
described Menasseh as being insensitive ‘to the danger of challenging public opinion
by undue demonstrativeness.’
19
The failure of Menasseh’s campaign leads to a consideration of the term
‘readmission’: the rabbi’s petition of November 1655 asked for admission of Jews on
an equal footing with native English citizens, public synagogues, rights to their own
law code, and freedom to trade. Jews from various parts of the world, especially those
subject to persecution, were meant to benefit. Following this definition we must
concede that readmission was not achieved. This has been acknowledged by certain
historians since Lucien Wolf. Albert Hyamson wrote in 1928 that ‘the goal to which
Menasseh ben Israel … had directed his efforts … was unattained’. In 1957 Israel
Finestein’s judgement was that the ‘readmission’ of the Jews ‘took the form of an
acknowledgement … and an authorisation of their Jewish worship … There was no
“recall” of the Jews’. The authorisation was granted, as we have seen, to the existing
crypto-Jewish community. Two modern London rabbis sum up events following the
Whitehall Conference: Cromwell ‘gave de facto permission to the existing marrano16
community … to continue undisturbed with its mode of worship. In this pragmatic
way recognition of Jewish settlement was granted’. This narrative of Anglo-Jewry,
beginning with the pragmatic Lucien Wolf, corrects the ‘Menasseh version’.
20
To pick up a vital thread in the pattern of events we must return to December 1655.
For five years Cromwell had shown a favourable attitude towards the Jews,
recognising the mercantile advantages of their presence as well as religious reasons
for welcoming them. Carvajal had been endenizened, and was at this time asking for
protection for his ship coming from the Canaries – there is no suggestion that he allied
himself to Menasseh. Cromwell’s responsibilities as head of state were augmented by
his sense of being an agent of God’s will, and many people looked to 1656 as a year
of apocalyptic importance. The divines at the Whitehall Conference proved unhelpful,
but one divine was absent: John Dury. Early in 1654, Cromwell had sent him to the
leaders of the Swis s cantons to continue his lifelong efforts at ‘procuring harmony and
fraternal union in the profession of the truth’. Cromwell described him, in the papers
of credence, as ‘that devout and learned man … minister of God’s word and dear to
us’. Dury was now in Hesse, where he received from Samuel Hartlib a letter asking
his views on the questions posed by Cromwell: was it lawful to admit Jews into a
Christian state, and if so on what terms? Dury replied from ‘Cassel, in haste, Jan. 8
t h
,
1656’; a second letter followed. Dury addressed Cromwell’s questions: ‘I know none
of the reformed churches or divines, who make their admission to be unlawful; but it
is a work which the civil magistrate takes wholly into his consideration’. He cited
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians at length, concerning lawful and expedient
actions. He concluded that Jews could be admitted into a Christian commonwealth,
but restraints should be imposed. Dury added a significant postscript: ‘Our state doth
wisely to go warily, and by degrees, in the business of receiving them. Menasseh Ben
Israel’s demands are great, and the use, which they [the Jews] make of great
privileges, is not much to their commendation here [in Germany], and elsewhere.’
21

Dury’s letters would have helped Cromwell: they would have reinforced his caution
about Menasseh, while the advice about the lawfulness of admission with restraints
would also have reassured Cromwell that his favours to the crypto-Jews were justified
since Carvajal and his associates were discreet and unlikely to cause trouble. Dury
advised that there should be no blasphemy of Christ, nor attempts at proselytising, nor 17
dishonouring of any of the ordinances of Christianity. If this were achieved, ‘then the
first rule of expediency will be observed’. There should also be instruction of the Jews
in the Christian religion, but this issue seems in practice to have been sidestepped.
This treatment of the Jews would be a mark of Christian love and serve to the glory of
God. For their part, the Jews should live by themselves and worship in their own
tongue; and ‘insolencies’ from both sides should be prevented by laws and special
orders. The matter of trade Dury was content to leave to the wisdom of the state. The
substance of his letters was edited into a pamphlet by Hartlib, and published in June
1656. None of this would be of any consolation to Menasseh who had been hoping all
spring for a favourable response to his own petition – especially as the postscript
referring to him was published. The rabbi himself was now a forlorn figure. A petition
to Cromwell (of 1656 or 1657) reveals him as ill and in need of money: ‘I make moan
to your Highnesse, as the alone succourer of my life, in this land of strangers …
havinge had great experience of your greatnesse in compassion as well as in majestie’.
Cromwell ordered the grant of a pension of £100 a year, part of which was paid
before another petition was presented by the rabbi in September 1657: his son Samuel
had died and had wished to be buried in Holland; Mena sseh asked for £300, offering
to surrender his pension seal. A grant of £200 was authorised, as we see from John
Sadler’s petition to Richard Cromwell on behalf of Menasseh’s widow. Sadler
described the rabbi’s disillusioned state of mind at the end of his stay in England: ‘at
length with his heart ever broken with griefe on losing heer his only sonne and his
presious time with all his hopes in this iland’, he reached Middelburg with his son’s
body, and himself died there in November 1657 (Kislev 5418). He was buried at
Amsterdam with an epitaph in Spanish to ‘the honoured Hebrew’.
22
Cromwell was the saviour of the first modern Anglo-Jewish community in London at
a time when their legal position was anomalous; there was no ghetto, but unless they
were endenizened they had no political status. Under Cromwell’s protection the
synagogue in Creechurch Lane became, in Lucien Wolf’s analysis, ‘a duly organised
public body’, increasing by 1660 to thirty- five families. Its officials included Rabbi
Moses Athias. Their accounts were kept in Portuguese by the treasurer; the surviving
Libro, from 1663, was probably not the first. Their activities in the City were
indicated by the membership of the Exchange granted in 1657 to Solomon Dormido.
A visitor to the synagogue in 1662 was told that ‘one year in Oliver’s time, they did 18
build booths on the other side of the Thames, and keep the Feast of Tabernacles in
them’. (This was a kind of harvest festival, a joyous week-long celebration.) The
importance of Cromwell’s protection is attested by events as soon as he was dead.
Thomas Violet laid a case against the Jews in 1659; the City Corporation also
presented a petition against the Jews in 1660. Amid all the accusations against the
Jews were some against Cromwell, ‘the late Usurper’, for admitting them to a free
habitation and trading, and allowing them liberty to practise their religion ‘to the great
dishonour of Christianity and public scandal of the Protestant religion’. In 1660 the
Jews held a meeting at the house of Senora Carvajal to draw up a petition to the king
for protection. Charles II had his own commitment to Jews who had helped him in
exile, so he asked the privy council to consider the community’s protection. When the
Jews in London had to petition again for protection in 1664, the king minuted the
document himself: that ‘they may enjoy the same favour as before, as long as they
demean themselves peaceably and obey the laws’. The Cromwellian privileges were
preserved. It was, wrote James Parkes, ‘surely the simplest charter of settlement in all
Jewish history.’
23
Ultimately, it was the policy of Cromwell and the discretion of the
Jewish community in London which established this settlement, rather than the
mission of Menasseh ben Israel.
Barbara Coulton, Lancaster University

2011-10-16T14:33:00.001Z

PROFESSOR NATHAN WACHTEL OF COLLEGE OF FRANCE SPEAKS ON MODERNITY, MARRANOS AND THE INQUISITION IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL

Atividades da Cátedra Claude Bernard, com o professor Nathan Wachtel

14/10/2011 (14:00) - 20/10/2011 (15:30)
Sala Evaristo de Morais (109) do Campus do Largo de São Francisco - São Paulo

O Consulado da França no Rio de Janeiro, o Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais e o Instituto de História da UFRJ, representados pelo Programa de Pós-graduação em Sociologia e Antropologia - PPGSA e pelo Programa de Pós-graduação em História Social - PPGHIS, convidam para as atividades da Cátedra Claude Bernard ocupada por Nathan Wachtel, professor do Collège de France.

Sexta-feira, 14 de outubro, às 14 horas: conferência "Modernidades: marranismo e Inquisição".
Terça-feira, 18 de outubro, às 14 horas: entrevista dirigida por professores do PPGSA e do PPGHIS, com a participação de professores e alunos.
Quinta-feira, 20 de outubro, às 14 horas: workshop com a participação de alunos do PPGSA e do PPGHIS.

As atividades acontecerão em português, com a participação de professores e abertas a ouvintes.

O termo “marrano” – denominação injuriosa conferida aos judeus na Espanha –
acabou sendo incorporado pela historiografia, designando os judeus da
península ibérica que foram expulsos ou obrigados a se converter ao
catolicismo (os chamados cristãos-novos) nos séculos 16 e 17. Muitos
buscaram refúgio nas colônias americanas de Portugal e Espanha, sobretudo no
México, Brasil e Peru.

Há cerca de seis anos, especialmente no Nordeste do Brasil, houve um momento
de “retorno” ao judaísmo por parte de pessoas que dizem ser descendentes de
cristãos-novos do período colonial. Muitas delas traçam extensas
genealogias, facilmente remontando ao século 18. Essas famílias, cristãs,
mantêm até hoje costumes de respeito a proibições alimentares, luz de vela
nas sextas-feiras à noite, leitura apenas do Velho Testamento e ritos
funerários específicos, entre outros. Esses elementos levaram o pesquisador
a perceber que, de maneira consciente ou inconsciente, esses grupos
preservavam uma memória marrana.

Entre memória e esquecimento, Wachtel percebe ao longo do tempo
representações tanto positivas quanto negativas em torno da herança judaica:
a lembrança e veneração dos mártires; a recusa dos ancestrais que lhes
transmitiram sangue impuro. Assim, a memória marrana compõe-se de um duplo
movimento: de um lado, a fidelidade perseverante; de outro, a vontade de
fusão e busca do esquecimento, sem que isso signifique desaparecimento total
da memória. O Brasil ofereceu e oferece condições favoráveis para ambos os
fenômenos.

Preocupado com essas questões, Nathan Wachtel tem concentrado seus estudos
na região do sertão, especialmente, em Pernambuco, Paraíba e Rio Grande do
Norte. Visa a reconstruir laços entre o passado e o presente, combinando
problemáticas e métodos tanto da história como da antropologia.

Trabalha também por meio da perspectiva comparativa. Em pesquisa anterior,
analisou a evolução da comunidade mexicana Venta Prieta, próxima do Pachuca,
México, na qual os membros, como os brasileiros, clamavam ser descendentes
de “cristãos-novos” do período colonial.

Nathan Wachtel é professor de história e antropologia das sociedades meso e
sul-americanas do Collège de France desde 1992 e diretor de pesquisa da
École de Hautes Études em Sciences Sociales-EHESS de Paris desde 1976.
Também é autor de vários livros, entre eles: *La Vision des Vaincus – Les
Indiens du Pérou devant la Conquête Espagnole* *(1530-1570) *(1971); *Mémoires
Juives* (1986); *Deuses e Vampiros – De Volta a Chipaya* (1994, em
português); *A Fé na Lembrança. Labirintos* *Marranos *(2003, em
português); *La Logique des Bûchers* (2009, Prix Guizot de l'Académie
Française).

A palestra será realizada 21 de outubro, às 19 horas, na Biblioteca Mário
de Andrade. O evento é gratuito e haverá entrega de certificados.

Após a apresentação em São Paulo, o professor também fará a conferência
“Memórias Marranas” em Caxambu, Minas Gerais, 26/10, na 35ª Reunião Anual da
Anpocs, Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais.

--
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *********
Prof. Dr. Renato Athias
Coordenador do Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Etnicidade
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
http://www.ufpe. br/nepe
http://www.ufpe. br/carlosestevao
*http://www.filmedor ecife.com. br*
http://www.athias. com.br
Tel: 55+81+21268286

2011-09-30T17:56:00.007Z

JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE

An Online Resource Centre

PORTUGAL

JEWS IN PORTUGAL
JEWISH CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES IN PORTUGAL
LISBON BELMONTE CASTELO DE VIDE EVORA FARO OBIDOS PORTO TOMAR
CONTACTS
SOURCES

JEWS IN PORTUGAL
There have probably been Jews in what is now Portugal since Roman times. From the 5th century onwards the Jews reinforced their position, remaining active during the Visigoth and Muslim periods. They were present during the Reconquista, when Christian rule was established throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

The second Portuguese dynasty (from 1385) initiated an era of relative prosperity for the Jewish community, creating what is generally considered a 'golden age' for the Jewish community in Portugal. Anti-Jewish riots and persecutions spread throughout Spain in 1391, driving large numbers of Jews across the border. Jews during this period made important contributions to Portugal's economic, cultural and scientific life; yet it was also at this time that the first major social tensions developed between Jews and Christians in the country.

In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain signed a decree expelling from the country any Jew who refused conversion to Christianity. Again, many fled to Portugal, where King João declared them slaves shortly after their arrival. Following King João's death in 1494, Manuel I restored the Jews' freedom. However, on drawing up his marriage contract with the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the king yielded to the demands of Spain, agreeing to completely expel Jews from the kingdom.

But Manuel realized that the Jewish community was an asset to the Portuguese economy. He delayed the Jews' departure and forcibly converted as many of them to Christianity as possible. His efforts culminated in the creation of thousands of 'New Christians', when crowds of Jews waiting to leave the country were baptised in Lisbon.

Many of these New Christians publicly followed Catholic rituals but maintained some Jewish religious and cultural practices in the privacy of their own homes. These 'Conversos' or crypto-Jews were also known as Marranos, a pejorative term meaning 'pigs'; the Court of the Holy Office often accused them of apostasy. Their punishment ranged from the public forswearing of their alleged sins to the obligatory wearing of a special penitential habit, a sanbenito, prior to being burnt at the stake. Only in the 18th century was the power of the Inquisition curtailed, by the Marquis of Pombal, principal minister to King Jose I (1750-1777). The last public 'auto-da-fé', at which Jews who professed their religion were condemned, took place in 1765. The Inquisition was only formally disbanded in 1821.

The Jewish community was slowly accepted back into the country from around 1800. A series of statutes and decrees granted them specific rights, such as the maintenance of places of worship and cemeteries, and the keeping of registers of births, deaths and marriages. During the Second World War, Portugal established a fairly liberal visa policy: thousands of Jewish refugees were allowed entrance, and Lisbon served as a base for the operations of Jewish organizations in and beyond the Iberian Peninsula. The country thus developed a small but significant new element to its Jewish populace, one with roots across Europe. Following the revolution in Portugal in 1974 and the ensuing political unrest, about half of Portugal's Jewish population migrated to Israel, Brazil, Canada and the USA.

In 1997, Portugal's National Assembly commemorated the 15th-century expulsion of Portuguese Jews and the resulting development of exiled Portuguese Jewish communities across the world. A special session attended by dignitaries was held in the capital.

Today the Jewish population of Portugal numbers about nine hundred, some two-thirds of whom live in Lisbon. The last Converso community can be found in the mountain village of Belmonte. Many of them have reconverted to the Masorti or conservative form of Judaism.

Despite the country's small Jewish population, Portugal has a rich Jewish heritage. The current excavation of possible 15th century synagogues in Evora and in the village of Castelo de Vide are but one example; the creation of new exhibitions, publications and public events linked to Jewish history and culture is another.

JEWISH CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES IN PORTUGAL
LISBON
Lisbon's Jewish community is the largest in Portugal. There is a Jewish cultural centre, a kosher butcher, a special abattoir, and a home for the elderly. See the CONTACTS section for further details.

FORMER JEWISH QUARTERS

An earthquake destroyed much of Lisbon in 1755, wiping out, among other things, the street pattern that might have made it possible to locate old Jewish quarters. In the centuries before mass conversions, Jews lived near the present-day Church of São Nicolau and along the Rua da Madelena. On the Rua da Alfândega, an historical marker in front of the Church of Conceição Velha makes reference to the synagogue that is believed to have stood on the site.

The Alfama is the area of old narrow streets that survived the 1755 earthquake. Jewish refugees from Spain settled here in the fifteenth century. The entrance to the neighbourhood's Jewish quarter, or Judiaría, was through the Arco de Rosario. Just inside the arch is a brick wall with a pair of decorative arched windows near the top - all that remains of what is believed to have been the quarter's synagogue.

Up the winding stairway just inside the arch is the Rua da Judiaría, the central artery of the former Jewish quarter. The typical medieval houses have a narrow door that was the family entrance and a wider one that often housed the place of business, such as a shop or workshop.

OHEL JACOB SYNAGOGUE

(UPDATED BY LADINA)

Welcome

ברוכים הבאים

TheKehilat Beit Israel,affiliated with the Masorti movement is a traditional / conservative situated

in downtown Lisbon, offering a unique blend of tradition and modernity. We are traditional in practice

with a contemporary mindset. Women are told to participate freely in the minyan and services.

The special appeal of our community is practicing Judaism based on the preservation of

Jewish tradition completely reject fundamentalism. A practice that adapts to the circumstances of the time,

respect different points of view and seeks to study the teachings of Judaism.

Masorti means tradition and derives from the Hebrew word L'Masoro (broadcast). Our goal is to get past,

stay in the present and transmit to future.

Claim that a genuine commitment to Judaism is possible only when there is a commitment to the observance,

study and Jewish life, but also when there is an acceptance of philosophical truths, social and scientific.

Our goal is to become the name of choice for traditional Portuguese Jew.

CONTACTS

Contacts

Jewish Community Beit Israel Masorti

f you do not belong to the community and intends to participate in services or visit the synagogue must send an email toinfo@beitisrael.orgwith the following information: full name,No. Doc ID - ID, Passport or RA,Address and contactsDate and Purpose of the visit.

E-MAILinfo@beitisrael.org

PHONE [+351] 966301048
[+351] 217975283

KOSHER - Stand in Kosher SupermarketEl Corte Ingles with various products of excellent quality such as: wine, meat, meat, oil, etc.. All duly certified with rabbinical supervision.

Location:
El Corte Ingles Supermarket
Avenida António Augusto Aguiar 31
1069-413 LISBON

Note: The marketing, distribution and product quality are the sole responsibility of its distributors.

JEWISH BOOKS - Books Publisher Sefer now available in Portugal:
Euroenigma Ltd.
Ricardo Afonso
Tlm. (+351) 965324201
E-mail: euroenigma@netcabo.pt

SHAARE TIKVA SYNAGOGUE

Sha'are Tikva (Gates of Hope)
In 1871 the Jews of Lisbon were granted permission to build a synagogue, a dream not fully realized until the dedication of the Shaare Tikva in 1904. The synagogue served as the centre of Jewish life in Lisbon thereafter; it was a sanctuary for the thousands of Jewish refugees who passed through Portugal during World War II. Architect Miguel Ventura Terra designed the building and in 1949 it was renovated under the direction of Carlos Ramos. Joaquim Bensaúde aided in both the original design and the first renovation.

The building incorporates both Romanesque and Byzantine elements and important artists of the period contributed to its interior decoration. The sanctuary is dominated by a marble Aron Kodesh inscribed with the Ten Commandments and encrusted with gold leaf.

In preparation for its centenary, a major renovation project was begun in 2003. Shaare Tikva is also the home of a collection of historic documents dating from the 17th to the 20th century, and an effort to establish a museum in the synagogue is currently underway.

Address

Alexandre Herculano 59

http://membres.lycos.fr/shaaretikva/

ROSSIO (CENTRAL SQUARE)

The Rossio is Lisbon's central square. The stately nineteenth-century theatre at its north end is on the site of the old Ministry of Justice, where forced mass baptisms of Jews were carried out in 1497 and from which the Inquisition was later administered. Just off the square is São Domingos church, where the sentences of the Inquisition were passed. A collection of Jewish tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions can be seen at the Archaeological Museum.

BELMONTE
A farming and wine-making area in the northern province of Beira Alta, Belmonte is the spiritual centre of Crypto-Jewry, a place where an entire community of Conversos kept large parts of their faith intact and, after 500 years, returned to it en masse.

In recent years, Jewish culture has been revived in Belmonte. A new synagogue, a striking building of white stone with a red-tiled roof, stands at the edge of the old Jewish quarter. Services take place every night in summer and there are Shabbat and holiday services throughout the year. The community is trying to raise money for a new rabbi. Meanwhile, its members lead services. There is also a mikveh in Belmonte.

CASTELO DE VIDE
Located among olive groves and chestnut trees in the mountain region of São Mamede, northeast of Lisbon and not far from Tomar, Castelo de Vide is a beautiful place. The ruins of the Roman settlement Miróbriga stand nearby, but Castelo de Vide is best known today for the remnants of its medieval Jewish quarter, which stand on the east side of the town. The area has a medieval atmosphere - narrow cobbled streets and old houses - but there is little specifically Jewish about the district. A small, whitewashed 14th-century building here is reputed to be the oldest extant synagogue in Portugal.

EVORA
In the Evora Museum there is a gravestone with a Hebrew inscription dating from 1378, and a cornerstone said to come from the town's medieval synagogue. The museum also houses a moneybox and bench reputed to have been used in the Inquisition. Across the street from the Museum is the public library, which contains a rare 1st edition of the Almanac Perpetuum by Abraham Zacuto (1452 - c. 1515).

FARO
This city was a famous centre of Hebrew printing in the fifteenth century. Samuel Porteira published the first printed book in Portugal, a Hebrew edition of the Pentateuch, here in 1487. Faro is the capital city of the Algarve province of Southern Portugal, from which Jews were expelled in 1497. Many continued to live there as Conversos and resettlement began in the early 19th century.

CEMETERY AND ISAAC BITTON LIVING MUSEUM

Today, the only trace left of a once-thriving Sephardi community, once known as 'Little Jerusalem', is the Faro cemetery, opened in 1820. The entire cemetery is paved with traditional Portuguese calçada; two large shady trees provide a serene atmosphere.

The cemetery was purchased in 1851 by three community leaders: Joseph Sicsu, the chazan (cantor), Moses Sequerra, and Samuel Amram. The Jewish calendar date 5638 (1878) above the entrance gates is thought to be when the cemetery wall was constructed.

In the 1860s, Jews from Morocco and Tangiers settled in Faro and just before the First World War the first Russian and Polish Jews arrived. Yet the cemetery had fallen into neglect by the 1980s, following the dispersal of Faro's Jewish community. Isaac 'lke' Bitton, a native of Lisbon, founded the Faro Cemetery Restoration Fund in 1984. He saw the danger of the cemetery, now on prime land, being destroyed by developers. His fundraising efforts provided the money for a restoration, arranged by Ralf Pinto of the Jewish Community of the Algarve in 1992-3. As part of the restoration project, a small Jewish museum was established in the former Bet Tahara, which visitors pass through to get to the cemetery. The new museum, the Isaac Bitton Living Museum, has as its centrepiece a display of furniture from former Faro synagogues.
www.apol.net/dightonrock/portuguese_jews_in_faro.htm

OBIDOS
Located about 80 kilometres north of Lisbon, the seaside village of Obidos lies in the Costa de Prata region. A Jewish community lived there during the 5th-7th centuries, when the city was occupied by the Visigoths. Another Jewish community lived there between the 8th-12th centuries, when Obidos was under Arab rule. A building in the Jewish quarter is reputed to have been a synagogue in the Middle Ages.

PORTO
Porto is Portugal's second largest city. Spared by the earthquake that destroyed much of medieval Lisbon, Porto's old city is intact, and with it the streets of the former Jewish quarter. It was in northern Portugal that the largest numbers of Conversos lived, and in the 1920s Porto was the centre of a modest cultural revival, under the leadership of an army captain, Arturo Carlos de Barros Bastos. Bastos left behind a small community almost entirely descended from Conversos, and the magnificent Kadoorie Synagogue.
http://www.cryptojews.com/anusim_presence_leite.htm

KADOORIE SYNAGOGUE

This synagogue was built by Lord Kadoorie of Hong Kong in honour of his wife, and was intended as a home for Portuguese Conversos. Set in a large garden dominated by towering palms, it is a square stone building with an entrance made up of a series of arches. The grand interior, under a large cupola, is marked by azulejos - the tiles for which Portugal is famous. Blue tiles line the side walls, and the eastern wall features gold tiles in arabesque patterns above an Ark with wooden doors. Just above the Ark is a large Star of David. Given the small size of the community (only about 35 Jews live in Porto), there is rarely a minyan, but the synagogue often hosts classes from the area's schools.

Address

Rua de Guerra Junqueiro 340

TOMAR
Thomar
Tomar is a small, historic town in central Portugal, about 145 kilometres north east of Lisbon, best known for the remnants of an impressive Templar fortress and a superb monastery that attract many visitors. Less well known is the synagogue of Tomar:

ABRAHAM ZACUTO LUSO - MUSEO HEBRAICO/FORMER SYNAGOGUE

This is the oldest existing synagogue in Portugal, built in 1438. The synagogue was vacated in 1496; it was used as a prison, and then as a church. In the late 19th century it became a hay loft and then a grocery warehouse. In 1921 the building was declared a national monument and in 1939 the owner donated it to the state for use as a museum. A mikveh was discovered during excavation of the outbuilding in 1985. The Abraham Zacuto Luso - Museo Hebraico, a Jewish museum, is now housed in the synagogue. Abraham Zacuto was a Jew who became court astronomer in Portugal after fleeing Spain in 1492. His astronomical tables were used by Columbus on his voyages of discovery.

The museum holds Judaica, fine art, several medieval Jewish gravestones, important architectural fragments from other buildings, including an inscribed stone from 1307 believed to have come from the Lisbon Great Synagogue (destroyed in the earthquake of 1755) and a 13th-century inscribed stone from the medieval synagogue in Belmonte.
www.bh.org.il/communities/synagogue/tomar.asp

CONTACTS
Comunidade Israelita de Lisboa (Jewish Community of Lisbon):

Address

Telephone
Fax
Email

Rua Alexandre Herculano, 59
1250 Lisbon
+351 13 858 604
+351 13 884 304
administravo@cilisboa.org

SOURCES

Da Silva, Manuel Luciano. 'The Portuguese Jews of Faro Algarve, Portugal', General History Articles, March 2006.
www.apol.net/dightonrock/portuguese_jews_in_faro.htm

Frank, Ben G. A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe: Second Edition, Gretna: Pelican, 1996.

Grossman, Grace Cohen. Jewish Museums of the World, Westport: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2003.

Krinsky, Carol Herselle. The Synagogues of Europe, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1985, 339-340.

Leite, Naomi M., and Sérgio Castro Pinheiro. 'B'nai anusim in urban Portugal', Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, accessed online March 2006.
www.cryptojews.com/anusim_presence_leite.htm

Pinto, Ralph. Jewish Events in Portugal in the 1990s, Portimao, 2000.

'Portugal', Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972.

The Jews in Portugal booklet issued by the Tourism Information Department, Lisbon, Portugal. With the support of TAP Air Portugal.

'The Synagogue of Tomar, Portugal', The Database of Jewish Communities, March 2006.
www.bh.org.il/communities/synagogue/tomar.asp

Tigay, Alan M. 'Portugal', Hadassah Magazine, March 2006; in the 'Traveller's Archive' column for November 2000.
www.hadassah.org/pageframe.asp?section=news&page=per.html&header=per&size=50

Weiner, Rebecca. 'The Virtual Jewish History Tour', Jewish Virtual Library, AICEX, March 2006.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/portugal.html#early%20history

contact us: editor@jewish-heritage-europe.eu

Entire website © Jewish Heritage Europe 2004 - 2008 All rights reserved

2011-09-26T22:06:00.001Z

Sounding of the Shofar on Rosh Ha-Shanah in the

Portuguese Synagogue (the "Esnoga") in Amsterdam

(etching by Picart)

2011-09-07T23:11:00.000Z

DNA STUDIES-PORTUGAL-INES NOGUEIRO

Phylogeographic analysis of paternal lineages in NE Portuguese Jewish communities.

Nogueiro I, Manco L, Gomes V, Amorim A, Gusmão L.

Source

Departamento de Antropologia, Universidade de Coimbra, 3000 Coimbra, Portugal.

Abstract

The establishment of Jewish communities in the territory of contemporary Portugal is archaeologically documented since the 3rd century CE, but their settlement in Trás-os-Montes (NE Portugal) has not been proved before the 12th century. The Decree of Expulsion followed by the establishment of the Inquisition, both around the beginning of the 16th century, accounted for a significant exodus, as well as the establishment of crypto-Jewish communities. Previous Y chromosome studies have shown that different Jewish communities share a common origin in the Near East, although they can be quite heterogeneous as a consequence of genetic drift and different levels of admixture with their respective host populations. To characterize the genetic composition of the Portuguese Jewish communities from Trás-os-Montes, we have examined 57 unrelated Jewish males, with a high-resolution Y-chromosome typing strategy, comprising 16 STRs and 23 SNPs. A high lineage diversity was found, at both haplotype and haplogroup levels (98.74 and 82.83%, respectively), demonstrating the absence of either strong drift or founder effects. A deeper and more detailed investigation is required to clarify how these communities avoided the expected inbreeding caused by over four centuries of religious repression. Concerning haplogroup lineages, we detected some admixture with the Western European non-Jewish populations (R1b1b2-M269, approximately 28%), along with a strong ancestral component reflecting their origin in the Middle East [J1(xJ1a-M267), approximately 12%; J2-M172, approximately 25%; T-M70, approximately 16%] and in consequence Trás-os-Montes Jews were found to be more closely related with other Jewish groups, rather than with the Portuguese non-Jewish population.

PMID:: 19918998; [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Publication Types, MeSH Terms

Publication Types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

2011-09-01T04:32:00.006Z

CANADA'S FIRST JEWISH MARRANA?

Esther Brandeau of Quebec
(adapted from Lusitania.ca by Manuel Azevedo)

Despite a French prohibition against non-Catholics from settling in its colonies, Portuguese names appear in New France (Quebec) in the early 1700’s; Joseph da Silva of Montreal, a creditor of the government (referred to as “the so-called Portuguese”), Maranda from Bayone (1711) and Jacob Coste (1744), and not to forget Canada's first letter carrier, Pedro da Silva* (1673), born in the heart of the Great Jewish quarter of Lisbon.

However, it is Esther Brandeau who arrived in New France in 1738 that was the first Jewess to immigrate to Canada. Except she was not a youthful twenty-year-old Esther who arrived aboard the ship, the St. Michel, but rather a young man named Jacques la Fangue, her alias. Esther arrived wearing mens' clothes!

Brandeau was arrested upon disembarking. Lacking an appropriate jail, she was detained at the colonial hospital. On September 15, 1738, she appeared before the Marine Commission of Quebec and declared her name to be Esther Brandeau, daughter of David Brandeau (Brandao?), a Jew of St. Esprit diocese, a suburb of Bayonne near Bordeaux in south west France, long known as a haven for “Portuguese merchants”, a euphemism for New Christians (secret Jews) fleeing the Inquisition in Portugal.

The amalgamation of the Spanish and Portuguese crown in 1580 to 1640 facilitated the exodus of Portuguese Jews to France. The Governor of New France, a cousin of the King, reported to the Minister of Colonies that many attempts were made to persuade Esther to abandon her religion, but she refused.

Intendant Hocquart reported, “Her conduct has not been wholly bad but she is so frivolous that at different times she has been both obedient and obstinate with regard to the instruction the priests desired to give her. I have no other alternative than to send her back.”

And so after spending about a year in Canada, Esther was deported back to France on the express orders of the King who also paid for her passage.

*http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/collecting/stamps/archives/2003/2003_jun_pedro.jsf

A Jewess in New France by Pierre Lasry

Commentaries by Jean-Marie Gélinas

Translation made from French to English by Jane Lavallee, Palm Springs, CA, USA

Centre Gélinas sur Internet è ( Important notice )

I do not doubt that Pierre Lasry accurately depicted the journey of Esther Brandeau as reported in September of 1738, in a verbal report by Varin de La Mare, the Marine Commissioner of Quebec.

During the entire biography, Pierre Lasry wrote magnificently and with much affection about the character and the Jewish identity of Esther Brandeau. In this historical novel, Esther Brandeau, for the first time, emerges from the obscurity to which she was relagated by our historians. At the time of her arrival in New France, Esther Brandeau attracted the attention of the French authorities when she declared that she was a Jewess. Up until that time, the authorities ignored or pretended to ignore the “new Christians” (Jews from Spain and Portugal) who were intermingled with Catholics and Protestants upon their arrival in New France and who wished to escape integration into the European culture. It is true that the new Christians had to declare to French authorities that they were either Catholic or Protestant and had to provide proof before embarkation at the port of La Rochelle to journey to New France. Is it possible that the noble Michel de Salaberry forgot this detail? Or, did he have another reason for shutting his eyes to this matter? This is the question. This is the puzzle.

According to the writings by Varin de La Mare which were found in our archives, there is a curious gap in the facts and there is evidence of a possible complicity that Esther Brandeau benefited by embarking from the port of La Rochelle. We wish to question the reason which caused Esther Brandeau to embark as a passenger on the Saint Michel for New France. Again, why is the only testimony in this record that of Esther Brandeau? Why wasn’t the principal witness in this matter, Michel de Salaberry, interrogated - why was he absent? Why is it that the responsibility of proof in this record rests solely on the shoulders of Esther Brandeau? All the same, is not the captain of his ship, aside from his responsibility to answer to the laws of the King, the sole master on board after God?

Let us examine the declaration made to Monsieur Varin de La Mare by Esther Brandeau in the town of Quebec on the 15th of September 1738. She said that she was twenty years old and that she embarked from the port of La Rochelle on the Saint Michel, which was under the command of Sir Salaberry (Michel de Salaberry). She was a passenger, dressed as a man, under the assumed name of Jacques La Faugue. She added that she was called Esther Brandeau, a Jewess, a merchant from the town of Saint-Esprit in the Diocese of Daxe, near Bayonne, and that she was of the Jewish faith.

She recounted that five years ago, her father and mother put her aboard a Dutch ship, under the command of Captain Geoffroy, which was to sail to Amsterdam and there she would stay with her aunt and brother. The sailboat was broken up (in April or May 1733) on a sand bar near the dunes of Bayonne and that she was fortunately saved by one of the members of the crew. She was taken away by the widow Catherine Churiau who lived in Biarritz. Fifteen days later, dressed as a man, she left for Bordeaux, and going by the assumed name of Pierre Alansiette, she embarked as a cook on a sailboat for Nantes, which was under the command of Captain Bernard. She came back to Bordeaux on the ship’s return journey. She then embarked again as a cook on a Spanish ship, under Captain Antonio, which was leaving for Nantes. Upon arriving in Nantes, she deserted and went to Rennes where she worked as a male apprentice to a tailor named Augustin and she remained there for six months.

Varin de La Mare asked Esther Brandeau to explain the reason why she disguised herself as a man for five years. She said that after being saved from the shipwreck and arriving in Bayonne, she found herself in the home of Catherine Churiau, as indicated above, where she was made to eat pork and other meats which were forbidden by her Jewish faith. She made a vow at that time not to return to her father and her mother in order to enjoy the same liberties as Christians.

In Versailles, this deposition met with suspicion: “I do not know if we should entirely have faith in this declaration made by the named Esther Brandeau who last year, disguised as a boy,

embarked upon the ship Saint-Michel and said that she was a Jew.” Wrote the minister to the Intendant Hocquart.

Source consulted:

Denis Vaugeois, Les Juifs et la Nouvelle France, Collection 17 - 60, Les Editions Boréal Express, Trois-Rivières.

New France was never a penal colony:

During all of it’s history, New France was never a penal colony. It was the colony of New Orleans which held that function for France. but never at the level of the English colonies, which later became the United States. If New France had been a penal colony, America would be French!

In 1988, while I was researching in the Maritime Archives in La Rochelle, France, I found a document from the 17th century - it was a regulation which was the law at the port of La Rochelle which clearly established the will of the King of France. It formally prohibited all port authorities and commanders of ships from recruiting itinerants and vagabonds and forbidding them to sail to New France. All persons, without exception, who embarked on ships leaving for New France, had to have their status verified by the port authorities including the ship’s captains prior to sailing. The royal regulation was formal and all persons had to be identified and be in possession of the required papers for embarkation.

Not everyone who wished to embark was allowed to go to New France! Those who did not follow the regulations, were subject to Royal justice One can always consult the document in the Archives in La Rochelle, France. Moreover, the cost for each of the ship’s passengers during that epoch was a fortune. Do not forget this!

Sources consulted:

Archives Maritimes of La Rochelle, France.

Sieur Michel de Salaberry was a noble, he was the son of Martin and Marie Maichelance, of Saint-Vincent-de-Cibour, diocese of Bayonne, Gascony. In 1737 at La Rochelle, he was named Captain of the ship, Saint-Michel, in which he made the ship’s only journey to New France. Michel de Salaberry was legally married, because previously, he came to Quebec in 1735 where he married on the 14th of May in that same year, Marie-Catherine Rouer de Villeray She was the daughter of Augustin Rouer de Villeray, Sieur de la Cardonnière and of Marie-Louise Pollet (and the granddaughter of Louis Rouer de Villeray de la Cardonnière, the civil and criminal lieutenant in New France who was the son of Jacques Rouer de Villeray, valet to the Queen of Notre-Dame en Grève, town of Amboise, in the Diocese of Tours; buried on the 7th of December 1700 in the church in Quebec).

Sieur Michel de Salaberry lived in Quebec during the time when his wife, Marie-Catherine Rouer de Villeray gave him two daughters and she died suddenly on the 26th of August 1740.

Children:

Marie-Angelique, b. 22 November 1735
Michel, b. 7 September and buried 13 November 1736
Angelique and Denise, b. On the 5th and buried on the 6th of May 1737
Louise-Geneviève, b. 2 June 1739: Nun (Sainte-Catherine), vows taken on 3 June 1755 buried on 2 December 1823 at the Hôpital Général in Québec.

A little while after the death of his wife Marie-Catherine Rouer de Villeray, Michel de Salaberry returned to France. According to the archives, from the time of the adventures of Ester Brandeau in New France, Michel de Salaberry did not assume command of any merchant vessel. Coincidence? It wasn’t until 1745, that he returned to this land (Quebec) in order to transmit the Orders of the King to the Governor, the Marquis de Beauharnois. When Quebec welcomed him again in 1750, we find him as an officer on the frigate “L’Angleza”.

On the 30th of July 1750 in Beauport, Michel de Salaberry was married for a second time to Madeleine-Louise Juchereau Duchesnay de Saint-Denis, the daughter of the Seigneur of Beauport. It was only in 1752 that we find him as the captain of the Royal vessel. “Le Chariot Royal”.

It was is 1760, after the conquest, when he finally left for France where his wife, Madeleine-Louise Juchereau Duchesnay de Saint-Denis died three or four months later. During his stay in

Canada, his wife gave him one son, Louis-Ignace-Michel, who was born on the 5th of July 1752. In order for the latter to have the power to claim the estate inherited from his mother, he was entrusted to his maternal grandparents in Canada, who made him study at the seminary in Quebec, studies which he afterwards completed in France.

Louis-Ignace-Michel de Salaberry returned to Canada at the age of 22. In 1755, as the Captain of Militia, he recruited volunteers who joined the regular army to repel the invasion of the Americans. He married in 1778. He married Françoise-Catherine Hertel, the daughter of Joseph Hertel, Seigneur of Pierreville. With his wife, he settled in Beauport in the house which once belonged to Robert Griffard. Charles-Michel (the future hero of the battle of Casteauguay) was born ten months later. Three other children followed, but they died at the time of their birth.

As we have come to see, Michel de Salaberry came from a family of noble ancestors. One can trace this noble family back to the 9th century. A descendant of the King of Navarre during this time, founded the dynasty of the Viscounty of Sault from which the Salaberry line descended. In 1099, an ancestor of the de Salaberry family accompanied Godefroy de Bouillon in the Crusade. During the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the de Salaberry family distinguished themselves in the service of the Kings of France. One of two was Abbot Louis-Charles-Victoire-Vincent de Salaberry, who was the counsel to the State in 1758. Another one, Charles-Victor-Vincent de Salaberry was a victim of the French Revolution in 1794.

In 1746, the de Salaberry family split up into two branches - the oldest and the youngest. It was the youngest branch that settled in Canada.

Reference Sources:

The notebooks of the Seigneurie of Chambly, volume III, number 2 September 1981, No. 6, by Armand Auclair.
Dictionaire Généalogique des Familles Canadiennes, Mgr, Cyprien Tanguay
Dictionaire des Canadiens Français, Institut Drouin

As we have seen, it is difficult to explain how Esther Brandeau was able to embark on the St-Michel by herself, without any help and without the complicity of the Captain, or of the port authorities. Who was the accomplice who was hidden in this dossier? Possibly a love story? Why not?

As we uncover what concealed this historic adventure of Esther Brandeau, we are left to wonder about the way in which Sieur Varin de La Mare , the Royal Commissioner of the Navy in Quebec, carried out this investigation. We can better understand the involvement of the King, who paid the return passage for Esther Brandeau.

How are we to understand the history of Esther Brandeau, a subject that has been taboo for a long time in Quebec. Will the secret of Esther Brandeau and Michel de Salaberry remain buried for a long time in out collective memories?

Whatever were the hidden motives of this history, today it is clear that the adventures of Esther Brandeau in New France could not have been possible without an accomplice. The lack of testimony in this document of the principal witness, Michel de Salaberry, seems anomalous to us.

The Town of St-Esprit: (other considerations)

Abraham Andrade, citizen of the town of St-Esprit, guided by the sentimentality of his youth, was driven, so to speak, to be put at the head of the judicious movement of the French Revolution in 1789. Thinking that he would not find any resistance, and also to quickly control the situation, he insisted that the town of St-Esprit, which was made the capitol, be dedicated to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and that this name should replace the too Christian name of their town.

At the time of the Revolution, all of the citizens of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (formerly the town of St-Esprit) were bound by the rules to declare their wealth to the French State and a board was formed which charged the fortunes that one could possess. The powerful Jewish families were all registered and taken together, their fortunes amounted to the sum of 7,500,000 pounds. The sum of 1,290,000 pounds was attributed to the non-Jews in the same locality.

List of the Jewish citizens of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (town of St-Esprit) and Grande Redoute

Leon Lafite	100,000 pounds	widower without children
The widow of Moyse Henriques de Castro	100,000 pounds	widow without children
David Alexandre	60,000 pounds	married with wife
Lassarade	70,000 pounds	married with wife, 5 children, father-in-law and mother-in-law having a very lucrative business
Samuel de Jacob Louis Nounés	50,000 pounds	married with wife
Marq foy father	50,000 pounds	married with wife, 1 child
Delvaille, father and son	150,000 pounds	their wives, 6 children
Joseph Desirat, baker of pastries	60,000 pounds	widower, 2 children
Jacob Henriques de Castro	120,000 pounds	mother, wife, aunt, 6 children
Bernard the elder	50,000 pounds	widower, 1 child
Ballas and Son, baker of bread	40,000 pounds	same household, their wives
Lévy the elder	60,000 pounds	widower, 4 children
Lévy the younger	50,000 pounds	bachelor
Dominique Larrieu	100,000 pounds	wife, 4 children
Laforcade	200,000 pounds	widower without children
Mendez France	150,000 pounds	wife, mother, 4 children, not including their property in America
Céfourcade	50,000 pounds	wives, 4 children
Jean-Baptiste Gassis	40,000 pounds	wives, 8 children
Gignan	50,000 pounds	married with wife
Laconne	100,000 pounds	married with wife, 8 children
Forgue, notary	40,000 pounds	married with wife
Benjamin Ferro and mother-in-law	45,000 pounds	married with wife and mother-in-law, 1 child
Samuel de Samuel Nounés	70,000 pounds	married with wife
Widow Castro and youngest son	100,000 pounds	with 6 children
Dormillier, director	200,000 pounds	6 children
Nunés brothers	200,000 pounds	2 wives, 6 children, 2 housekeepers
Abraham Nunés	150,000 pounds	his wife and 2 housekeepers
Delvaille the elder	150,000 pounds	wives, 8 children
David Salzedo	40,000 pounds	wives, 4 children
Furtado the young	180,000 pounds	married with wife
Abraham Louis Nounés
Jullian
Daniel Fernandez Patto	70,000 pounds	married with wife, 4 children
Moyse Fernandez Patto	100,000 pounds	widower, 1 child
Benjamin Nunés	50,000 pounds	married with wife, 6 children
Desclaux	40,000 pounds	wife, mother, 1 child
Duffau, marshal	40,000 pounds	married with wife, 2 children
Lartigue	50,000 pounds	married with wife
Gassané	60,000 pounds	mother and son
Labrouche	150,000 pounds	married with wife

Abraham Fernandez Patto and Margueridon Montespan were respectively president and president of the community of the town of St-Esprit, which became during the Revolution, as we have said, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Grande Redoute. It seems that there is one president for the men and another president for the women at the time of the French Revolution.

We also find the following names of men along with the others already named

Abraham Fernandez Patto - Larre - Moffre - Patto, jeune - Isaac D'Avron Rodrigue - Dominic Larrieu - Josué Patto - Baptiste Laporte - Abraham de Jacob Louis Nunés - Valery the youngest - Estoup

The following are names of the women:

Margueridon Montespan - Victoire Tavarez - Lacorne - Céfourcade - Sara Olivera - Judith Louis Nunez - Thérèse Bagnères - Rosette Silva - Larre - Chanda - Desbarbet.

Other names:

Bergez, Master of the Community (probably the Rabbi) - Gabriel P. Souarez - J. Léon - Valéry - Dandrade - Bernal - Tavarez - Isaac Gomez Baïs - Moïse Brandam, fonction de hasan - Ester Morais - Samuel Baruch Cavaillo - Jeosua Los Rios Espinosa - Ester Leon - Rachel de Herera - Jacob Frois - Elie Pechaud - Sara Rachel Rodrigue - Ester Baïs - Rebeka Dacosta - etc...

Consulted Sources:

Etablisement des Juifs à Bordeaux, Francia De Beaufleury
Histoire des Juifs à Bordeaux, Théophile Malvesin
Bibliothèque Nationale à Paris

Researcher: Jean-Marie Gélinas

13 August 2001

FROM
Jewish Women's Archive. "JWA - Jewish Women In Travel - Esther Brandeau." http://jwa.org/discover/infocus/travel/brandeautravel.html (September 1, 2011).

Eighteenth century woman Esther Brandeau's (c. 1718-?) desire for travel and adventure was so strong that she broke the restrictions of gender and the laws of the land to leave her home in La Rochelle, France, for the Americas. She arrived in Canada by a circuitous route. Her parents had sent her to live with relatives in Amsterdam. When her ship was wrecked on route to the Netherlands, she chose her own path, determining to "enjoy the same liberty as the Christians." She worked a series of different jobs under assumed male names in various parts of France. In 1738, when she was only 20, she became "Jaques La Fargue," the cabin boy on the "San Michel," a ship sailing to Quebec. It was as "Jacques" that Esther became the first Jew known to set foot in Canada.

Quebec City, 18th century, from the UC Davis History Project.

Esther's entry into Canada was illegal, since it was Canadian government policy to exclude all Jews and Huguenots. Unfortunately, Esther's gender and background were revealed on her arrival in Quebec, when her shipmates made "the remarkable discovery that the comely, spirited youth with such refined manners was in fact not "Jacques" but Esther."

Once discovered, Esther was arrested. She quickly became an administrative nightmare for the French-Canadian authorities, largely because she rejected the ministrations of Catholic priests, adamantly refusing to convert to Christianity. She asserted that she had left her home and dressed as a boy in order to have the same rights as Christian men, but still held fiercely to her Jewish background.

After years of legal wrangling between the governments of Canada and France, Esther was deported, and she vanished from the historical record. Her story shows the lengths eighteenth-century Jewish women had to go to in order to fulfill their dreams and explore the world beyond (and even within) their native lands.

Sources and excerpts for this page were drawn from Shalom Quebec, a website created for the 400th birthday of Quebec, highlight Jewish contributions to the city and Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Special thanks to Simon Jacobs of the Shalom Quebec project for his help.

How to Cite This Page
Jewish Women's Archive. "JWA - Jewish Women In Travel - Esther Brandeau." (September 1, 2011).

2011-08-31T15:35:00.001Z

SECOND INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF SEPHARDIC MEMORY
September 18-21, Portugal
http://www.festivalsefardita.com

II Festival da Memória Sefardita

18, 19, 20 e 21 de Setembro de 2011

PROGRAMA

Dia 18

Feira Medieval Judaica em Belmonte

21h00 - Concerto de Mor Karbasi – Teatro Municipal Guarda (TMG)

Dia 19

GUARDA

09h30 - Sessão de Abertura - TMG

10h00 - Apresentação da Rede Nacional de Judiarias

11h00 – Coffee Break

11h30 – Continuação dos trabalhos

13h00 - Almoço

15h00 – Os Justos Portugueses da II Guerra Mundial

A Acção de Carlos Sampayo Garrido e Alberto Branquinho na

Hungria

16h00 – Coffee Break

16h30 – Continuação de trabalhos

21h30 – Antestreia do filme “O Cônsul de Bordéus” no Teatro Municipal

Guarda

Dia 20

TRANCOSO

09h30 – Inauguração da exposição do espólio do Capitão Barros Basto

no Convento dos Frades

10h00 - A Obra do Resgate do Capitão Barros Basto – Convento dos

Frades

11h00 – Coffee Break

11h30 – Continuação de trabalhos

12h30 – Almoço

15h00 - Continuação dos trabalhos

Dia 21

BELMONTE

10h00 – Visitas temáticas

Encerramento do Festival

2011-08-24T14:36:00.000Z

FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH CHRONICLE

In California farming town, a Latino congregation commits to Judaism

byRoberto Loiederman
The Jewish Journal

21 days ago | 1868 views | 0 | 10 | |

Children from Congregacion Beth Shalom in Santa Maria, Calif., celebrating Purim. (Courtesy Edgar de la Pena)

LOS ANGELES -- Located in the northern part of Santa Barbara County, but as distant from chic Santa Barbara as one can imagine, Santa Maria is a blue-collar town dotted with fast-food and barbecue joints. In recent years its population, at least half of which is Latino, has mushroomed to 100,000 fueled by agribusiness — including vineyards and wineries — and the city’s other growing industries.

On a Friday afternoon, the local radio stations play mostly Christian music or gospel chants in English and Spanish. The city’s main drags are lined with churches of all denominations.

But one church in particular stands out. Out front, a large banner reads in all capital letters Congregacion Beth Shalom. The spelling of Congregacion isn’t a mistake; it’s Spanish.

Edgar de la Pena, 36, a Mexican-born graphic artist who grew up in Santa Maria, is the founder and leader of Beth Shalom, a devout community with a dozen families — approximately 60 people — including many children.

On Shabbat and Jewish holidays, as well as other occasions, they gather in the sanctuary and meeting hall they rent from the church or at people’s homes. Though fairly new to the religion, they worship, study and live their Judaism wholeheartedly, and they do it communally.

Like many Latinos who were raised Christian and later became Jews by choice, de la Pena has family memories that connect him to Judaism.

He recalls that at 7 years old, while still living in Michoacan, Mexico, he traveled to Jalisco to see relatives. He and his family arrived on a Friday. Before sundown, his grandmother told him to put on good clothes and turn off the TV. The table for Friday night dinner was set elegantly, and the family didn’t go out in the public square until after sundown on Saturday evening.

At 11, de la Pena's family moved to the United States, settling in Santa Maria, and he attended a Pentecostal church. While still a teen, he married his high school sweetheart, Irene — of Filipino background — and they had children soon thereafter. In his early 20s, already a father of two young daughters, de la Pena became a lay minister in his church.

“But as I began to search the Bible for its essential meaning,” de la Pena said, “I felt more and more that I wasn’t getting what I needed from the church, what I needed spiritually. I felt I was being told what to think and not to question things.”

De la Pena heard some in the church speak badly of Judaism. “So on my own, I started to study Torah,” he said.

He visited a synagogue and heard a sound that struck him at his core: the blowing of a shofar. The bleating of the ram’s horn not only moved him deeply, it also brought back other memories of his grandmother — and of certain behaviors he suddenly realized were based on family traditions that indicated possible Jewish roots.

If he did, indeed, have Jewish ancestors, de la Pena was determined to learn what the religion meant, so he became more and more involved with Judaism.

“I put Jewish holy objects in my house — a menorah, holiday decorations,” he said. “I stopped eating pork. I started to light candles on Friday night. I was still in the Pentecostal church at the time, so there were those in the church that made my life miserable.”

Finally, de la Pena wrote a letter to the elders telling them that he wanted to leave the church for good. In response, some threw eggs at his home, secretly fed his kids sandwiches with pork and prohibited their children from playing with his children. De la Pena apologized to his family for what they had to endure, but he felt he had to stop hiding who he was.

Once he was away from the Pentecostal church, de la Pena became involved with Messianic Judaism, a growing movement whose adherents observe elements of Judaism: They pray in Hebrew, observe Shabbat, maintain kashrut, adore Israel and celebrate Jewish holidays. But they also venerate Yeshua — Jesus Christ. Messianic Judaism, especially when practiced by Latinos, seems to grow out of a desire to live the life that Yeshua and his disciples lived, which was that of observant Jews.

De la Pena is very much aware that others might suspect his group of being Messianic Jews. He says emphatically they are not.

“We passed through a period with Messianic Judaism and realized it was not what we were looking for,” he said. “Once I began studying Judaism seriously, I realized that it’s very different — and a lot more — than the Judaism presented by the Messianic Jewish groups.”

The next step for de la Pena was to attend what at the time was the one shul in Santa Maria, a Reform congregation.

“These people are also Children of Israel,” the rabbi told the congregants.

Nevertheless, de la Pena and those with him felt uncomfortable, largely because the service was in English.

Eventually, with the support of his family and friends, de la Pena founded the Beth Shalom minyan. The congregation is far from wealthy, but all the families contribute.

Spanish-speaking Rabbi Daniel Mehlman, who officiates at Studio City’s Congregation Beth Meier, occasionally visits Santa Maria and offers guidance to those in the community who have embarked on the conversion process. Mehlman says the group’s members “come from an observant [Christian] tradition,” which may account for — in Mehlman’s words — their “genuine spiritual yearnings.”

On Friday nights, the Beth Shalom community gathers for Shabbat services. De la Pena’s oldest daughter, 17-year-old Erandy, chants the biblical portions — in Hebrew — with skill and beauty. It’s hard to listen to Erandy, to experience the community’s earnestness, and not be touched.

Mehlman is moved by the group, too.

“They’re thoroughly committed to their Judaism,” the rabbi said. “The amount they invest in their religious institution, proportionally, is astounding. They do everything possible to create a comfortable home for themselves as Jews, which is hard to do in a place like Santa Maria.”

Mehlman listened as Erandy chanted.

“Amazing, isn’t she? Her father’s Mexican, her mother’s Filipina … and she’s 100 percent Jewish," he said. "It brings up the question, what do Jews look like?”

Mehlman opened his arms, palms up, indicating the entire Beth Shalom community.

“The answer is, they look like this,” he said.