Jewish museum of Porto hosts 1,000 students on historic anniversary

One thousand students from schools throughout Portugal toured the Jewish Museum of Porto, the museum announced last week.

The visit took place on the anniversary of the 1496 Edict of Expulsion, which banned Judaism in Portugal. The edict had a negative impact not just on the country’s Jews but on Portugal as a whole, explained Michael Rothwell, the museum’s director.

"The edict caused the Jews to leave the kingdom and enrich other competing powers,” Rothwell said. “A chain of events even led to the loss of Portugal's independence in 1580, as seen from a rare object exhibited in the museum, the ‘Megillat Purim Sebastiano.’”

“This document demonstrates how the Moroccan Jewish community feared being forcibly converted to Christianity by Dom Sebastião. With the help of two Portuguese conversos (forcibly converted Jews), they provided decisive information for the Muslim armies to prepare for the clash,” Rothwell added. “This resulted in the crushing defeat of the Portuguese nobility, the death of the king, and, two years later, the loss of Portugal’s independence, which passed into Spanish hands."

During their tour of Portugal’s second-largest city, the students learned about the history of Jewish life in the area, which dates to before the founding of the Kingdom of Portugal in the 12th century. Jews were instrumental in the founding and development of the country, the museum stated. Portugal currently has a Jewish population of 3,000 – 6,000 people.

Importance of Jews in Portugal

“The Jews played an important role in the administration of the country," said Gabriel Senderowicz, president of Porto’s Jewish community. "With their scientific, cultural, commercial, and economic skills, as well as their mastery of many languages, they contributed to Portugal's diplomatic relations and the voyages of discovery that transformed a small country into an empire,” Senderowicz said.

In the museum’s theater, students watched films produced by the community, including The Light of Judah, The Lisbon Genocide, and 1618. The films depict the immediate effects of the edict on Portuguese Jews, the massacre of thousands of Jews in Lisbon, and the Inquisition’s activities in Porto, respectively.

Hugo Vaz, a museum historian, discussed 1618 with the students.

“The municipal and judicial authorities of Porto opposed such Inquisitorial persecution and even ordered the siege of the ecclesiastical court by guards on horseback,” Vaz explained. “This unprecedented case in 17th-century Portugal led an onlooker, Sebastião de Noronha, to travel to Madrid to complain to King Dom Filipe.”

The museum, inaugurated in 2019, is open exclusively to schools and the Jewish community for security reasons. However, it opens to the public on the European Day of Jewish Culture, celebrated on the first Sunday of September, alongside the Holocaust Museum and the Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue.