Even though the pavement is flat and I can see the street ahead of me, my head is spinning with what I’ve been through since arriving in Belmonte. In a few hours, I communed with the ghosts of my Jewish past, including Umberto, my old roommate from Rio who became a secular rabbi. I was reluctantly allowed into a synagogue run by Jews who risked their lives for centuries to preserve their traditions. I held a siddur without knowing what to do with it. I met a Brazilian woman aspiring to become a Jew. And I watched two Israeli women ordering scrambled eggs and toast for Shabbat dinner.
What else should I expect?
I surprise myself at the ease with which I find Casa Dona Branca Dias. Belmonte is a small town, but at this hour, it is quiet and completely deserted. Even the quintessential cats who hunt in dark alleys after nightfall are nowhere to be seen. Luckily, I can navigate the streets without needing help from passersby or Google Maps. The main drag leads to the old neighborhood below the castle and to the street where small stone houses greet me without distractions. I even spot our rental car on the way, giving me confidence that I am on the right path.
As I open the door, I realize that Vera was right when she insisted I turn the heater on, though I won't admit it to her. All I need is to hear her say, “I told you so.”
The room feels warm and inviting, and its modern amenities signal to me that it is time to relax and enjoy my solitude. I decide on a cup of tea and a snack from the leftover food I bought in Porto, and connect to cyberspace to learn about Belmonte, just as I did in Porto, when I wanted to explore the sites I would miss on this trip.
The first thing I discover is just how little I know about the Jews of Belmonte. I thought Crypto-Jews and New Christians were interchangeable, describing the Jews who converted to Catholicism during the time of the Inquisition. I was wrong.
The New Christians were the Jews who converted to Christianity, either “voluntarily” or by force, during the Portuguese Inquisition, which began in 1497. They were also called Conversos, Marranos, or Anusim in Hebrew, meaning “the forced ones.” The Crypto-Jews were a subset of the New Christians, meaning “the hidden Jews.” These Jews practiced Christianity in public, but secretly maintained some Jewish beliefs and traditions, even though they had lost their sacred books and the Hebrew language. In Belmonte and a few other towns in Portugal, Crypto-Jews carved Christian symbols, especially crosses, into the stones beside their doorways to show loyalty to Christianity and protect themselves. Some of these carvings are still visible on the walls of Belmonte. Umberto once posted photos of these stone markings on his Facebook page, but I never understood what they meant or how they were connected to the Jews of Belmonte.
I also learn that the Jews of Belmonte were Crypto-Jews who had remained hidden until not that long ago, something I had already begun to suspect when we tried to enter the synagogue. Now I read that the Jews of Belmonte lived successfully under cover until 1917, when they were “discovered” by an outsider.
That outsider was Samuel Schwarz, a Jewish mining engineer from Poland who had been working in Portugal since the start of the First World War. At the time, the Jewish community in Lisbon had little interest in or sympathy for the New Christians. But Schwarz decided to investigate a rumor that the New Christians in Belmonte considered themselves Jewish and preserved some Jewish rituals. He traveled to Belmonte and met a local merchant who told him that he was a Jew and that his family had been secretly practicing Judaism. Other members of the community refused to reveal their secret to Schwarz until he recited the Sh’ma prayer (Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad). Only then did they reveal their Jewish identity to him. Or at least, that’s how the legend goes.
Schwarz studied the Crypto-Jews for several years and published a book describing their lives. He observed that the Crypto-Jews had no synagogue, rabbi, or Hebrew texts, which made sense considering the ubiquity of the Inquisition. But they celebrated a holiday that resembled Passover, lit Shabbat candles inside clay jars, and kept some kosher food practices at home, such as abstaining from pork. Their practices and traditions passed from one generation to the next through the women who conducted the rituals and taught them to their daughters. The men were not circumcised because it could have given their secret away, and the community married within itself for generations. They also lived in total isolation for centuries, believing they were the last Jews.
In the 1970s, the Belmonte Jews began to open up to the world. In 1989, the Jewish Community of Belmonte was established, and the Crypto-Jews officially “returned” to Judaism. The synagogue Bet Eliahu, which I visited earlier, was opened in 1996. The land on which it was built was donated by the heirs of a woman remembered as a “female rabbi,” and the construction was financed by a Moroccan Jew whose ancestors probably came from the area. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the young Jews of Belmonte left for Israel, and those who remained in town now practice Orthodox Judaism.
After learning all this, I feel differently about the men from the synagogue. I no longer think they are weird or impolite or mean. They are the direct descendant of the Crypto-Jews. Too bad I didn’t know any of this before I invaded their sanctuary. These guys lived in hiding for five centuries. They can’t be expected to change their ways just because some of the outside circumstances changed a few decades ago. The Inquisition can come back in the blink of an eye in one form or another from somewhere unpredictable. Nothing guarantees that it won’t. Hatred of Jews is deeply ingrained in Europe, and not only there. So I completely understand that the habits and skills acquired during centuries of hiding should not be discarded. The world has not proven itself to be a safe place for Jews just yet.
Unfortunately, the synagogue is closed now, and I can’t go back to apologize to them. I’ll have to do my tikkun in another way.
