Abstract
This paper examines the complex Jewish reality in Portugal in the first half of the twentieth century. Alongside the old Sephardic community that emerged in Portugal with the dissolution of the Inquisition, the early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of two new differentiated groups: crypto-Jews, who began to return to Judaism, and Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. These two groups changed the physiognomy of the Portuguese Jewish community to a pluralistic religious, ethnic, and cultural compound never seen before in Iberian lands. Later on, the increasing Nazi persecutions and the outbreak of World War brought to Portugal thousands of Jewish refugees who tried to emigrate to countries overseas. The historical and social complexity examined in this article lasted a few years. Before the end of the Second World War, the refugees had emigrated from the country, the return of the Marranos to Judaism had lost its vitality, and the Jewish community continued its course in the Sephardic setting prior to the convulsions of the pre-war years. By focusing on the unique characteristics of Jewish life in Portugal in the first half of the twentieth century and on the diversity that each group presented in social, cultural, economic, and political terms, this study sheds light on a topic that has not yet received the attention it deserves in the historiography of Iberian Jews.
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Notes
The oldest Jewish tombstone in Lisbon can be found in the British cemetery, on a plot of land purchased by Jews in 1801. The tombstone belongs to Joseph Amzalek and dates back to 1804 (de Bethencourt 1903, p. 265).
The history of the post-Inquisition Jewish collective in Portugal has not yet been researched adequately. De Bethencourt’s article (1903), written about 100 years ago, is one of the best studies focused on this topic. See also Schechter (1917) and Schwarz (1959). Dias (1996, 1989, 1999) published important studies on Jewish settlement and economic activity in the Azores in the nineteenth century. See also Serels (1987). Be this as it may, not much is known about the re-establishment of the Jewish collective in modern Portugal, especially in matters such as the migration of North African Jews to Portugal, their economic integration, community organization, religious life, children’s education, etc.
An impressive list of Jewish authors and writers who lived and worked in Portugal at the time is available in Jacobo Israel Garzón’s (1996) “Autores judeo-portugueses contemporáneos,” Revista de Estudos Judaicos 3 (1996), pp. 41–52. Likewise, the editors of Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira devoted biographical entries to several second-generation immigrants who made significant contributions to Portuguese society. The Benoliel family members, Benjamin Franklin, José, Joshua, and Sara, pp. 533–534, Jacob and Levy Bensabat, 534–535, and especially the Bensaúde family members, Alfredo, Emília, Jane, Joaquim, José, Matilde, Maurício, Raúl, and Ricardo and Vasco Elias, 535–537.
Alfredo Bensaúde, who attended and took supplemental studies in universities in Germany, was an engineer, professor of geology at the Institute of Industry and Trade in Lisbon, director of the High Technical Institute in Lisbon, and publisher of studies on mining and geology. Joaquim Bensaúde, who also studied in Germany, was an engineer and historian of the Portuguese naval exploration voyages and marine science. He published books and articles in these areas in Portugal and abroad.
Unfortunately and paradoxically, this figure worthy of a biography left no testimonies and no memoirs, all the more so that his library was sold and his private archive disappeared without a trace. However, Abraham Elmaleh's biography, Le professeur Moses Bensabat Amzalak: sa vie et son oeuvre litteraire, économique, historique et scientifique, should be mentioned (Jerusalem: Ahva, 1962).
Nahum Slouschz, a journalist who visited Portugal for the second time in 1931, mentioned that there were 40 Ashkenazic families (Ecos do Hechawer 1927: 87).
Of the four groups discussed in this article, the Ashkenazi group lacks the most documentation, archives, journals, and memoirs of members of the Association of Polish [Jewish] Citizens in Lisbon (Ryten 2006: 59–65). The Archives of this Association remain with Jacob Ryten, son of the President of the Association, Moshe Ryten—a fact that hinders the historical knowledge of this sector.
In the late 1920s, during the military dictatorship era, the journalist Jacob Nachbin visited Portugal in 1929 and published a series of articles on the Jews in Portugal in the Yiddishe Folkstzaitung (The Yiddishe Gazette). 1929: “Porto the city and the Jews in Oporto” (Porto di shtot un di iden in Porto, [Yiddish]), April 30; “News from a traveller” (notitzen fun a farbegueier, [Yiddish]), May 31 and following in June 7. Living in Brazil since 1921, he was involved with the East European émigrés there and moved in circles that had been central to the establishment and shaping of the community and party institutions there (Falbel 2013).
Slouschz was extremely active in literary–journalistic affairs, initially in Hebrew and later in Russian and other languages. Immigrating to Palestine in 1891, he prepared Jewish public opinion for the idea of the First Zionist Congress. After the Second Zionist Congress, he enrolled in studies in Geneva and engaged in Zionist activism in Chaim Weizmann’s circle. He went on to attend the Sorbonne and earned an academic degree for his work on the history of modern Hebrew literature in 1903 (Kressel 1967: 510–511).
Benjamin Mintz (b. 1903 in Łódż, Poland) was educated in Gerrer Hasidic circles and was active in Agudath Israel. Immigrating to Palestine in 1925, he settled in Tel Aviv. He co-founded Po’alei Agudath Israel in 1933 and initiated the world unification of this movement in 1946. Mintz was a member of the Yishuv’s Rescue Committee during the Holocaust, a Member of the Parliament (Knesset) from the time Israel was established, and Deputy Speaker of the Second and Fourth Parliament. He died in 1961.
Menachem Mendel Diesendruck, originally from Poland, was hired by the community in 1930 as a hazan of the synagogue, later becoming a rabbi of the community. At the same time, he guided young people in the community by giving courses and lectures to Hechawer members. Diesendruck was a Zionist and identified with the religious Zionist Hamizrahi movement. He remained in Lisbon until 1952, and then continued his rabbinic functions in Brazil.
Mendel Diesendruck to M. Koretz, Lisbon, 13/7/1944, Central Zionist Archives (CZA), S5/763. .
Fritz Lichtenstein to Leon Lauterbach, London, 8/2/1944, CZA, S5/763.
Fritz Lichtenstein to Joseph Linton, 3/11/1943, CZA, L22/152.
Mendel Diesendruck to M. Koretz, Lisbon, 13/7/1944, CZA, S5/763.
Benjamin Mintz claims that his application for admission to the community was rejected even after he passed the circumcision ceremony for the second time (Mintz 1996: 211).
Barros Basto was the force behind the magazine Israel, with the intention of uniting Sefaradim, Ashkanazim, and Marranos into a single community (Israel 1927: 2).
In the article entitled “Resurgence of Judaism in Portugal” by Samuel Weisberg, a Polish Jew visiting Portugal in 1926, the author asked Portuguese Jews for more tolerance toward the crypto-Jews who began to return to Judaism quoting the Rambam and Rabbi Guershom (Ecos do Hechawer 1926b: 4).
Against this background, Mintz argued that the heads of the Jewish community were reluctant to accept Samuel Schwartz’s request to publish his book New Christians in Portugal in the XX century. This he probably heard from Schwartz (Mintz 1996: 209).
In the brief biographical listing about Benarus, compiled by Moses Bensabat Amzalak, in the Encyclopedia Judaica. 1972. Vol. 4, 464, he did not note that he had been president of COMASSIS, even though Benarus headed the Zionist Federation in Lisbon for many years and was well known among Zionist leaders and institutions outside Portugal.
See the brief biography in the memoir of a Jewish refugee who arrived in Lisbon in 1933: Sela 1969: 158.
D’Esaguy was born to a Sephardic family in Faro in South Portugal. He studied medicine in Lisbon and wrote books in this area. The National Library in Lisbon has more than 100 bibliographical entries in his name. He authored several works on crypto-Jewish doctors persecuted by the Portuguese Inquisition, such as Orobio de Castro and Isaac Cardoso.
See Augusto d’Esaguy’s farewell letter, April 22, 1941, Lisbon Jewish Community Archive, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (hereinafter: CAHJP), Po/Li/A-II/12a,2.
See chapter on Polish Jews in; D’Esaguy (1940a).
Community Board Meeting, 26/3/1941, CAHJP, Po/Li.
Rabbi Diesendruck expressed serious, fierce, and personal allegations about Moses Amzalak’s leadership and personality as President of the Community. Among other things, he stressed, “The negative attitude and hatred the Community President entertains toward all Ashkenazic Jews, in general, and those from Poland, in particular” in a letter to Leon Lauterbach, 20/7/1945, CZA, S5/763.
Expression used by the Portuguese-Marrano Committee officials to denote the inland regions where most crypto-Jew lived. The main communities were found in the Beiras and Tras-os-Montes regions.
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Milgram, A. Crypto-Jews, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Refugees from Nazi Europe in Early Twentieth-Century Portugal: Together and Apart. Cont Jewry 40, 607–626 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-020-09353-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-020-09353-z