The European Commission announced in early October that Jewish life will be fostered in a Europe that was home to 9.5 million Jews before the Second World War and whose remaining 1.5 million are abandoning the Old Continent.
21 December, 2024
Communities
The history of the Jewish community of Oporto is much older than the official foundation of Portugal.
Its name is Campo da Igualdade Isaac Aboab, or the Isaac Aboab Field of Equality.
In 1143, when King D. Afonso Henriques received recognition of Portugal as an independent kingdom, the Jews had been present on the Iberian Peninsula for over a millennium.
In the early 19th century, descendants of Sephardi Jews who had taken refuge in Morocco and Gibraltar, returned to Portugal. In 1801, they bought a plot in Estrela English Cemetery in Lisbon.
In the center of the Algarve for over two years one can find an active Synagogue: the Ezra & Sasoon Synagogue.
The Hebrew date, 5638, written above the gate corresponds to the year 1887 of the Christian era.
The Jewish Community of Belmonte is a landmark in the history of the Jews in Portugal.
On Sunday, 11 February 2001, at a time when history was being made, the Jewish Community of Belmonte inaugurated its cemetery.
