Portugal - Portuguese Personalities

This posting will begin with the life history of a number of personalities who played major roles in the history of Portugal Jewry; and then discuss some of the customs that continue to this day which had their roots in the lives of Jews before the 1500's.  

While many people have heard about the famous Lisbon born Rabbi, scholar and financier to kings in a number of countries, Don Yitzchak Abravanel, we had never heard about these four individuals who played a major role in Portuguese Jewish history: Rabbi Abraham Zacuto, Captain Artur Carlos de Barro Basto, Aristides de Sousa Mendes and Samuel Schwartz. 

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Rabbi Avraham Zacuto was born in 1452 in Spain and is likely the only Jew to have a crater on the moon (Zagat) named after him. He was an astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and rabbi; he was a student of the Menorat Hamaor, and the author of the Sefer HaYuchsin, a historical chronicle covering the entire history of mankind from a Jewish perspective.  

After the expulsion in 1492, he fled to Lisbon. He was invited by King Joao II of Portugal to become the official Royal Astronomer and Historian and consulted with the king on the possibility of a sea route to India. 

He had developed a new type of astrolabe, which allowed for the calculation of latitude at sea and he authored a historic astronomical work, called HaChibur Hagadol which detailed 65 astronomic tables charting the sun, moon and the five planets (pictured below), which together with his new metal astrolabe revolutionized ocean travel, allowing for accurate readings anywhere on land or at sea. 

The pictures below show the wooden astrolabe that was used by the early navigators. This devise was quite inaccurate when the ship neared the equator and as such, no explorers ventured all the way to the tip of South Africa until Vasco De Gama acquired and was instructed in the proper use of Zacuto's metal astrolabe which is shown on the right. 

Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus both used Zacuto's device and his tables and as such Zacuto's works are credited with their navigational success.

The following picture is one of Zacuto's original astrolabe complete with the markings in Hebrew. 

There is even a theory that the gold background on the Portuguese flag under the coat of arms, is Zacuto's metal astrolabe. We were told this by one guide and it was denied by others. But the colour and the shape seem to indicate a globe structure similar to the astrolabe. 

There is a famous story about Columbus that involves Zacuto. While in one of the Caribbean islands with his fleet and sailors, Columbus and his crew were threatened by local native tribes. Columbus who was carrying Zacuto's astronomical tables noted that on that evening there would be a lunar eclipse and therefore warned the natives that they better treat him with respect or he would make the moon disappear. They waited and watched that evening and sure enough, the moon disappeared. By morning, Columbus and his men were revered as gods by the locals and were granted protection and safety.

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Captain Artur Carlos de Barros Basto was born in 1887 in Amarante, Portugal and died in 1961 in Porto. While still a young boy, he was told by his dying grandfather that the family had Jewish roots. This had a major impact on him and at the age of 17, he read that a synagogue was being inaugurated in Lisbon, the same shul in which we davened during our visit. 

While stationed in Lisbon for his army training, he attempted to join the shul but due to his Crypto Jewish background, was refused entry. He remained interested in Judaism and determined to examine his roots and heritage.

He entered the army and during WWI was decorated for acts of bravery and promoted to the rank of captain. 

He taught himself Hebrew and while living in Morocco, began the process of conversion, underwent circumcision and was finally accepted by the Beth Din in Tangiers. He returned to Lisbon, married a local Jewish woman, Lea Azcanot and had children and grandchildren. One of his granddaughters is the current Vice President of the Jewish Community of Porto. 

In 1921, he and his wife moved to Porto, which at the time had less than 20 Ashkenazi Jews, no formal Jewish community and no synagogue. In 1923, he formally registered the Jewish Community of Porto (Comunidade Israelite de Porto) and launched a Jewish newspaper, HaLapid, "the torch".  He opened a synagogue in a residential home in Porto and more and more people began to attend. These were not Jews but descendants of the Jews of the Inquisition days, who claimed that Jewish  customs and observances in their Christian homes over the centuries were proof of their Jewish roots. 

The existence of so many Crypto Jews attracted the attention of the Portuguese Jewish Community in London who together with Barros Basto created the Portuguese Marranos Committee aimed at identifying and integrating Portuguese citizens with Jewish roots into the Jewish community.

 In 1929 he purchased land and began raising funds to build the Mekor Haim synagogue in Porto which was completed and inaugurated in 1938. It took such a long time because they ran out of funds in the interim despite the support of the Portuguese Jewish community of London, England. However, in 1933, Laura Kadoorie, the wife of Sir Ely Kadoorie of Hong Kong, died. She was from a Portuguese Jewish family that fled in the time of the Inquisition and in her honour and memory, Sir Ely provided the funds needed to complete the project. As a result, the name Kadoorie has been associated with the shul ever since. This is the same shul in which we davened and which is the largest shul in the Iberian Peninsula. 

De Barros Basta's story does not end here. In 1937, as the shul was being completed, he was thrown out of the Portuguese army and stripped of his rank because of the sin of being too jewish, for encouraging Crypto Jews to return to their Judaism and for participating in circumcision ceremonies on returning Jews. his court-martial led the other Jews that he was helping to go underground and the shul was basically abandoned. It has a brief revival as a refugee centre for Jews fleeing the Shoah (more on that below) and then only recently has there been a major attempt at reviving the Jewish community in Porto, which is meeting with some success. 

De Barros Basta attempted to have his name cleared and became known as the Portuguese Dreyfus. He died in 1961. 

His family and the community fought for years and finally in 2012, the Portuguese parliament passed a unanimous resolution exonerating him and raising his rank to Colonel. The resolution stated that de Barros Basto " had been separated from the army due to a generic climate of animosity toward him, motivated by the fact that he was Jewish, not hiding it, and, on the contrary, showing an energetic proselytism converting Portuguese marrano Jews and their descendants". 

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Aristides de Sousa Mendes' story reminded me of the story of Japanese Consul General Sugihara, who was responsible for writing visas that saved 6000 Jews from Nazi death camps in defiance of specific orders from his government. De Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux at the time of the German invasion of France was responsible for writing 30,000 visas, passports and travel documents, 12,000 of those to Jews fleeing the death camps of the Shoah.

And yet, given the fact that he saved more Jews than Schindler or Sugihara, almost no one has ever heard of him. 

He was a career diplomat serving in Kenya, San Francisco, Zanzibar, Brazil and Antwerp, before being assigned to Bordeaux, France. He was a devout Catholic, was married and had 14 children. When the Nazis invaded France, people fled south, away from the conflict toward the region of Bordeaux, looking for a way out of the country, in the direction of Portugal; up to this point, neutral in the war.However, Antonio Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, in an attempt to appease Hitler, issued "Circular 14" which stated that "no Jews or dissidents be permitted passage to Portugal".

De Sousa Mendes was conflicted terribly. He was a devout Christian and his conscience told him this was wrong. Additionally, the Portuguese constitution clearly stated that neither religion nor political beliefs were reason to refuse entry to Portugal.

As the German army approached Paris, an estimated 6 to 10 million people packed their bags, flooded train stations and took to any form of transport to escape the Nazi onslaught. One of the refugees who fled to Bordeaux was Rabbi Chaim Hersz Kruger, with his wife and five children. Rabbi Kruger, a chassid, originally from Poland, but most recently a resident of Belgium, was befriended by De Sousa Mendes, who offered him and his family safe passage to Portugal, despite Salazar's Circular 14. Rabbi Kruger refused the offer, unless he could take all his brothers and sisters; i.e.; all the Jews who had assembled in Bordeaux looking for a way out. De Sousa Mendes was advised by his staff and by his wife to refuse Rabbi Kruger's request; defying Salazar's edict would mean total disaster for him and his entire family. But De Sousa Mendes wrote to his superiors and received the rejection letter that everyone expected.                      At this point, De Sousa Mendes traded patriotism to Portugal for something he felt more important; saving lives, and he advised Rabbi Kruger of his intention to issue as many visas as humanly possible before being stripped of his post. Rabbi Kruger went back into the city and collected passports from everyone he met so that visas could be issued. From June 12 until June 23rd, 1940, De Sousa Mendes, one of his sons, an aide and Rabbi Kruger, worked round the clock, with De Sousa Mendes signing the visas and Rabbi Kruger stamping them. 

The Portuguese government was alerted to what was occurring and immediately instructed all border crossings that no "De Sousa Mendes signed visa" be accepted as entry into Portugal. Below is a picture of one of the De Sousa Mendes signed visas. 

Rabbi Kruger and his family were among the last to leave, and when approaching the border, were denied entry. However, as in a Hollywood movie, De Sousa Mendes appeared at the same border crossing, and personally lifted the crossing barrier so that Rabbi Kruger and his family could reach safety, eventually reaching the USA.

De Sousa Mendes' story does not have a happy ending. He was stripped of his position and was forbidden any employment including his profession of practicing law in Portugal. He was denied a pension. His children were denied entry into universities and the entire family became outcasts and impoverished. 

De Sousa Mendes died in 1954, but never regretted what he had done. Before he died, the man referred to as "the Angel of Bordeaux" asked his children to try to restore his family's honour. 

In 1966 he was named by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations". In 1988, the Portuguese government dismissed all charges against him and promoted him posthumously  to the position of ambassador. 

A foundation has been established to restore his family home, to create a museum and memorial site, and to develop an archive of the many people that he saved from certain death. 

We had never heard of him before this trip and learning about this courageous person and his self sacrifice to do what was right was one of the highlights of what we learned in Portugal.

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Samuel Schwartz is another person we had never heard of before this trip and he plays an important role in the lives of the Crypto Jews of Portugal. 

Samuel was born in Poland in 1880 and died in Lisbon in 1953. He studied Civil Engineering in Paris and became a mining engineer. 

When the First World War broke out he and his wife Agatha were honeymooning in Portugal and he began work there in the tin mines in the mountains bordering Spain. 

He spoke 10 languages; Russian, Polish, German, Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Yiddish. 

In 1917, while in Belmonte, a small mountain town, he met members of a community who he identified as Crypto Jews. They had maintained their identity in secret for over four hundred years believing in a God who would redeem his people in the end of days. They married among a small number of families to keep the Jewish chain pure; they practiced Shabbat and holidays; they kept laws of Jewish burial like the sahara and lighting a candle for 7 days of shiva; they consecrated their own marriages with the statement "In the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I commend you to His benediction"; they developed their own sausages made from chicken and rabbit called Alheira, which they passed off as pork sausages to fool the local Christians. 

Even after the Inquisition ended in 1821, they kept their beliefs and observances secretly for fear of another Inquisition and the outside influences that would destroy their traditions. 

When Schwartz met them and identified himself as Jewish, they did not believe him as they had assumed that they were the only surviving members of a dead religion. It was only after he pronounced the name of Hashem in the Shma, that they believed him. 

Even so, they stayed underground until the "carnation revolution" of 1974 that ousted the dictator Salazar and brought total democracy to Portugal.

In 1923, Schwartz went on to purchase a house that was the former site of a shul in the town of Tomar, which is now under renovation, and as such we were unable to visit it. Built between 1430 and 1460, it is one of the best preserved medieval synagogues in Portugal. Excavations in a building next to the shul revealed an ancient mikvah. Schwartz restored the building and conducted the first excavations. 

In 1939, he donated the building to the Portuguese government in return for Portuguese citizenship that provided safety for him and his family during the Shoah. Below is a picture of the interior of the Tomar Synagogue. 

The building also serves as the Abraham Zacuto Museum and contains artifacts with hebrew inscriptions from the 1300's. 

Samuel Schwartz will be remembered as the man who began the process for the return of the Jews of Belmonte to Torah Judaism. 

We hope you have enjoyed this post as much as we enjoyed doing the reading and research on these four amazing individuals.

All the best

Fran and David