^{The Holocaust Musem of Oporto - The European Day of Jewish Culture, 2023}

The Jewish Community of Oporto will celebrate the European Day of Jewish Culture on Sunday, September 7, from 10 AM to 5 PM, with activities across several city venues, including the Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue, the Jewish and Holocaust Museums, kosher restaurants, and an art gallery. Participation is free.

The European Day of Jewish Culture is celebrated in the largest European cities, with activities coordinated by the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, and the National Library of Israel. The aim of the event is to provide information on the history, religion, laws, customs, principles, symbols, and philosophy of the Jewish people.

This is the fourth edition of the celebration in Porto, which has previously attracted thousands of visitors. It offers one of the few opportunities to access Jewish sites that are usually restricted to school visits, Jewish tourists, and community members.

The program combines film screenings, lectures, concerts, and debates, highlighting the rich cultural heritage of the local Jewish community.

^{The art gallery and the Rosh Pinah library - The European Day of Jewish Culture, 2023}

THE JEWISH HERITAGE OF OPORTO

The Jewish Museum of Oporto presents four millennia of world Jewish history and two millennia in the land that is now Portugal. Valuable objects, documents and films are dedicated to the brightest era of the Jewish community of Oporto, to the edict of King D. Manuel, to the times of the Inquisition and to the community’s return in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

The Holocaust Museum of Oporto exhibits objects left behind in the city by the refugees in the 1940s and depicts Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust. It also has a replica of the dormitories at Auschwitz and a room of the names of victims.

In the art gallery, the visitor can see twenty large paintings depicting the history of the Jews in Portugal, from the foundation of the kingdom to the development of an empire, and from the expulsion of the Jews to the decline of the Portuguese nation.

The Mekor Haim choir will sing works in Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino, from its repertoire of songs from the Renaissance to the modern period.

At the Rosh Pinah library, the visitor can see the impressive collection of 10,000 books on history, philosophy and Jewish law.

In the kosher restaurants in the community, which will also be open on European Day of Jewish Culture, the visitor can experience the gastronomy that the Jewish world has to offer.

In the cinema of the Porto Jewish Museum, three films will be screened:

- “The Light of Judah”
This documentary is a voyage in time, from the medieval fairs, to the Torah study rooms, the edict of Dom Manuel, the escape of many Jewish families, the implementation of the Inquisition in the Kingdom, the inquisitorial hunt for the main families of Jewish origin in Porto, the official rebirth of the Jewish community in the early twentieth century with the city's Ashkenazi families, the efforts of Barros Basto to return the Marranos to Judaism, the Portuguese Dreyfus case, the decades of darkness in the Kadoorie synagogue, and the revival of the community in recent years.

- "2000 kidnapped Jewish children"
This documentary reports the tragic fate of exiled Jewish children on a distant and inhospitable island after the expulsion of Spain in 1492. In the Jewish world, Sao Tome became known as I Hatimshaim, "The Island of Lizards."

- “1506 – The Lisbon Genocide”
This documentary shows a massacre of the Jews that has been forgotten. The19th of April is the anniversary of the start of the massacre which lasted for three days and assassinated close to three thousand Jews in Lisbon. The bonfires went as high as the houses, in a city filled with quartered bodies where heads were paraded on the points of spears.

^{The Jewish Musem of Oporto - The European Day of Jewish Culture, 2023}

FULL PROGRAM

Porto, Sunday, September 7, 2025, 10 AM – 5 PM

10:30 AM - JEWISH MUSEUM OF OPORTO

• Screenings of “2000 Kidnapped Jewish Children” and “1506 – The Lisbon Genocide”, followed by a lecture by Paulo Mendes Pinto, specialist in the History of Religions.

12 PM - KADOORIE MEKOR HAIM SYNAGOGUE

• Concert by the Mekor Haim Choir, with explanations by Yonah Yaphe, choir member and member of the Jewish Community of Oporto, about each piece of music.

3 PM - JEWISH MUSEUM OF OPORTO

• Screening of “The Light of Judah”, followed by a lecture and discussion with historian César Santos Silva.

3:30 PM - HOLOCAUST MUSEUM OF OPORTO

• Film by Chaya Lassmann, survivor of Auschwitz Block 10. Lecture with Josef Lassmann (Chaya’s son) and Michael Rothwell, director of the Jewish and Holocaust Museums, on DNA-based efforts to trace records of Chaya’s sister, who disappeared during the war.