1506-2006

2006 represents the 500th anniversary of one of the saddest days in Jewish
history, the massacre of the remaining Jews in Lisbon and the final expulsion
of the Jews from Portugal!
In 1391 there was a major massacre of Jews throughout Spain and Portugal
that presaged the coming catastrophe. In 1492, as everyone knows, Columbus
discovered America, and the Jews were expelled from Spain. That year the
Spanish Christian forces were finally successful in defeating the
Moorish/Muslim forces in Granada. This was taken as the moment to cleanse
Spain of all offending non-Christians, including Muslims and Jews. Of the
several hundred thousand or so Jews in Spain at that time, approximately half
"chose" to convert to Christianity and the rest, consisting of ca. 200,000
people were expelled to various parts of the world, with the largest number,
perhaps half, going to Portugal. There they joined an already established
Jewish community in Lisbon. The evacuees were given 6 months to stay in
transit and forced to pay a fee to King Jaoa of Portugal. However, the King
died mysteriously in 1494 and was succeeded by King Manuel, a very
ambitious monarch.
He decided that the Spanish Jews were too useful to be lost to his small,
impoverished kingdom, so he issued an edict in 1497 that all remaining Jews
would be forcibly converted to Christianity. In Lisbon there were terrible
scenes as Jews were forcibly converted. In their zeal Catholic monks branded
many Jews with crosses, including on their foreheads. Those who refused to be
converted were either killed or committed suicide. Many children were torn
from their families and on the King's orders were sent en masse to one or
other of his island possessions, including Sao Tome, to be brought up there as
good Catholic Portuguese. Supposedly 20,000 Jewish children were kidnapped
in this way.
But, the story was far from over. In Spain, the Inquisition started in earnest
in 1497 under the Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada, but it was not directed at the
Jews, who supposedly had all either fled or converted, it was directed against
the so-called conversos or New Christians. Since it was suspected that many
of these were not sincere in their adoption of Christianity (how could they be
when it was forced upon them), the Inquisition was tasked with ensuring that
no remnant of Judaism remained in the Catholic Kingdom of Spain. It was
forbidden to "Judaize" on pain of death, anyone uttering Hebrew words, saying
anything about Judaism, or owning a Hebrew book, was liable for torture and
execution, often by burning alive. Regular "auto-da-fe's", pyres of burning
Jews (some claiming sincere Christian beliefs, others re-converting back to
Judaism), were the favorite entertainment throughout Spain (these continued
until the 1700s). A major motivation for the Inquisition was for the Monarchy
and the Church to share in the wealth that was stolen from the New Christians
if they were found (proven under torture) not to have been sincerely
converted.
Not to be outdone, the fervor of Portuguese Catholics burned against the New
Christians, who were known as "marranos" or swine. On the first day of
Passover, 1506, a pogrom broke out in Lisbon and many thousands of New
Christians (or Jews) were massacred, burnt and tortured. The favorite
treatment of these people by the Old Christians was to cut off their limbs
or decapitate them, since they believed that they were only half-human and
they wanted to release their evil spirits.
Amazingly after this massacre there were still Jews living as New Christians
in Portugal. Some of them receded into small towns in the mountains and hid
there, secretly practicing remnants of their Jewish religion, such as secretly
lighting candles in cellars on Shabbat, or sitting on low stools when someone
died. The town of Belmonte is one such town in northern Portugal, where there
is now a synagogue and a thriving community of open Jews. But in time, many of
these crypto-Jews or anusim (in Hebrew) could not break with their past, and
have remained as they were, outwardly Christian, inwardly Jews (there is also
a community of crypto-Jews in New Mexico). One of my Spanish friends
estimated to me that 20% of the Spanish population are descended from New
Christians/Jews.
After the massacre of Lisbon in 1506, many Jews managed still to escape from
Portugal. Unfortunately many of them were cruelly treated by Christian boat
owners and sailors. Jews were robbed, killed, sold into slavery and delivered
to the Inquisition in Genoa and elsewhere. But, amazingly others persevered.
Jews were welcomed in Sicily and the Turkish Empire, and many
Sephardim settled in Turkey, Greece and the Balkans (most of their
descendents were murdered during WWII).
Many Jews escaped to North Africa, where they were welcomed by resident
Jewish communities. However, some of the local Muslim rulers were not always
happy to see them. Maimonides was taken as a child of 13 from Granada to Fez,
and from there his family were forced to flee across North Africa, ending
their long saga in Cairo, where he became physician to Saladin.
My own antecedents managed to escape to Holland, probably like most Sephardim
via Bordeaux. What is now Holland and Belgium had been colonies of Spain, and
had been badly treated by them. As a result of the Protestant uprising against
Catholicism, there was a war and the Dutch with British help threw out the
Spaniards, and gained their independence. Because of their hatred for the
Spanish, the Dutch welcomed the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. That's why there
is a large Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam dating from the early 1600s, and
my own family managed to escape and lived there for 300 years, until the
Nazi invasion and WWII, when most of them were again massacred (luckily my
grandfather left for England in the 1920s). For hundreds of years Holland was
the only corner of the world where Jews could freely pursue their chosen
devotions.
1506 represented the final death throes of Spanish and Portuguese Jewry, that
had been the largest and most advanced Jewish community in Europe. I have
been told that Christianity is a religion of love, but I have found precious
little evidence of that in our history.
_______________________
The book I am reading "The last kabbalist in Lisbon," by Richard Zimler, was
helpful in writing this message.