There are only 600 Jews living there today, yet at one point in time, Jews were the heart of Portugal’s economic and intellectual development. Once a country concentrated with Jews, Portugal is filled with Jewish history: a history of success, happiness, persecution, despair, and reconstruction.
Although the Kingdom of Portugal was not established until the 12th Century, Jews arrived at its location in the Iberian Peninsula in the 6th Century B.C.E., during the reign of King Nebuhadnessar. Some say they may have settled there earlier in time, during the rule of Melekh Shelomo.
When Portugal became a country in the 1100s, Jews received protection from rulers and legislators. There were individuals appointed specifically to settle Jewish affairs, while Jews filled other royal positions as well.
The Golden Age of Discovery hit Portugal in the 1200s, and lasted throughout the 1300s. Many Portuguese Jews were heavily involved in the countries pursuit of exploration. For instance, Abraham Zacuto, a Sephardic Jewish mathematician, astrologer, and rabbi, developed navigation tables used by explorers, including Vasco de Gama.
Other notable “Golden Age” Portuguese Jews include Yehudah Abrabanel, a poet, philosopher, and doctor, as well as Garcia de Orta, a physician and naturalist. In the 1300s, the Jews were some of the principal contributors to Portugal’s economic and intellectual success.
As of the early 14th Century, there were over 200,000 Jews residing in Portugal, who made up 20 percent of the country’s population. They could enter all parts of the country as they desired, but they lived in separate quarters with their own shuls, hospitals, jails, and other facilities.
Yet as it does many times, the success of the Jews of Portugal produced envy, which was followed by hate and persecution. Anti- Jewish sentiment flooded the country, and fights between Christians and Jews peaked. These clashes increased at the close of the century, as more Jews arrived in Portugal.
After the Spanish expulsion in 1492, 150,000 Spanish Jews sought refugee in Portugal. King Joao II only allowed 630 rich families to stay in Portugal, after paying the crown a generous sum of money. Other, who could not afford to pay much, gave a smaller amount on exchange for an eight-month stay. Yet at the end of the eight months, many of these Jews became slaves, since means of travel were not available to them.
And it all went downhill from there.
Depression struck the Portuguese Jews in 1493, as the King commanded that Jewish children be separated from their parents. During that fateful year, 700 Jewish children were shipped off to the island of Sao Tome, newly discovered land located off the coast of Africa.
Things seemed to be looking more colorful for the Jews in Portugal when Manuel I ascended to the throne in 1494. As a leader who appreciated the Jewish contribution to the country, he reinstated freedom to Jews. Yet this freedom was short-lived.
Soon after he became king, Manuel’s right to rule was challenged. To secure his position as king, Manuel decided to marry Isabela, Princess of Spain. Yet she only agreed to marry if he expelled the Jews from Portugal. Obsession with his own personal security overcame him, and Manuel married Isabela. Five days later, he decreed that all Jews leave Portugal by October of 1497.
Being that he appreciated the Jews and their contributions to society, King Manuel I made it difficult for them to leave. He closed all ports of exit, except for Lisbon, and made attempts to convert Jews to Christianity so they could stay.
These attempts resulted in a new group of Marranos, who lived as Jews in secret, and publically appeared Catholic. Some Marranos were soon discovered, and many claims were made accusing Portuguese residents of being Jewish. Consequently, in 1506, 3,000 were killed.
At this point, as murders of Marranos rose and life became increasingly dangerous for Jews in Portugal, many fled to different countries, including Amsterdam and the Americas.
Although in the 1800s Jews were “invited back” to Portugal, Jewish life there was never as it once was during Portugal’s Golden Age. But Jewish immigrants did come to Portugal, first from Britain, and then from other countries including Morocco and Gibraltar.
In 1912, the new Portuguese Republic reestablished the Jewish rights. The Jewish community was given the right to shuls, a cemetery and a hevrah kadishah, birth and death registries, and the right to collect sedakah.
By World War II and the Holocaust, there were only 380 Jews living in Portugal, in addition to 650 Jewish war refugees. Yet Portugal served as an important place for Jews during this time, for 100,000 Hungarian Jews fled Nazi Germany through Portugal’s port in Lisbon.
Today there are only about 600 Jews living in Portugal, and an estimated amount of 100 Marranos. The largest modern-day Jewish Portuguese community consists of the 300 residing in Lisbon. There, the Ashkenazim and Sepharadim live side by side, holding their community together.
