Masorti Europe Grundtvig Partnership

Our Best Practice Projects Beit Israel (Lisbon, Portugal)

Comunidade Judaica Masorti Beit Israel (Lisbon, Portugal)

Jewish Portugal

Kehillat Beit Yisrael is a small community located in Lisbon, composed mainly of Marranos (Bnei-anussim).

For our best practice project, we focused on three areas: making our Marrano history known through several means, including the Internet; implementing new melodies for services; and touring key historical Jewish locations throughout the country.

We have undertaken several tours of Judiarias (Jewish neighbourhoods) in Lisbon and other villages and cities of Portugal. These have included:

  • The Jewish neighbourhood of Sintra, with a visit to the National Palace, the Castle of the Moors, the Monastery of the Capuchos and, naturally, the Jewish neighbourhood of Sintra. The tour included the site where, it is thought by historians, the local synagogue used to be located. In Portugal, a lot of buildings are built on ruins.
  • The Judiarias of Lisbon. There were originally 4 Judiarias, but between the human demolition and the 1775 earthquake hardly anything stands nowadays. The tour included a visit to the Cathedral of Lisbon, the Church of Saint Magdalene, built in the 16th century upon the former main synagogue of Lisbon. We also visited other major locations of importance to Jewish history in Lisbon, especially the Praça do Comércio and Rossio, where most of the autos-da-fe took place. Upon publishing the report of this tour we were contacted by the Mayor's office's and asked whether we could provide them with relevant information related to our findings.
  • Cabeço de Vide, a village located in the south of Portugal (Alentejo) by the Spanish border. This is an old village where a fairly large Jewish community used to live. The Cabeço de Vide Jewish community suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Portuguese Inquisition.

Further tours are scheduled for the future, aiming to acquaint the members of our organization and anyone else with an interest in this subject with the most important sites of Jewish history in Portugal.

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