Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Castelo de Vida

Sunday we drove north-east from Lisbon, arriving at the small town of Castelo de Vida (Castle of vines) around noon.  The main reason for visiting this town is that it has a recognized and partially restored synagogue.  We were met by the former Mayor Mr, Carolino, who was the Mayor during the revolution of 1974.
He was able to trace his family origins back to 1320 from Toledo in Spain. The family business was metal working and they continued that in Castelo de Vida, and he showed us their working shop with some original tools. Because he was the Mayor and because he was a Bnei Anusim he bought and renovated a small partly hidden synagogue in the Juderia, which he took us to see.  Where the Juderia starts there are Magen David in the stone pavements.  The synagogue is a small museum and has a memorial wall with the names of 400 Converso Jews who were taken from there and murdered by the Inquisition in Lisbon. 
After lunch we drove further towards the Spanish border and at a place called Portagem there is an intact Roman bridge over the river Sever that separated Portugal from Spain. Next to it is a Roman tower that used to be the customs post in the 15th century.  It was here that a large portion of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 paid to cross into Portugal.  Altogether there were ca 100 - 200,000 Jews who entered Portugal and because there were so many of them they were distributed around all the towns and villages in the region.  The total population of Portugal was then only ca. 1 million so the Jews were a large and influential group. On the wall of the tower is a plaque commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Jews expulsion from Spain.
We then drove to the highest point locally at Marvao where there is a small village adjacent to a huge Moorish castle.  The name of the Moorish General was Marwan, so it is named after him, and he had his headquarters there with a magnificent view over this area of Portugal.

From there we drove to Trancoso where we are staying while we visit the Jewish areas there and in nearby Belmonte.  At dinner we were addressed by Jose (Yosef) Levy Domingos, a journalist by profession, but a leader of the Jewish community in Belmonte and by the local Rabbi Elisha Salas, who originally came from Chile and is now an emissary of Shavei Israel to the Crypto-Jews. 

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