^{The curator of the Jewish and Holocaust Museums of Oporto, Hugo Vaz, guiding a group on the European Day of Jewish Culture. Credit: CIP/CJP}

Oporto is home to one of Europe’s most significant spaces dedicated to Jewish memory: the Jewish Museum of Oporto, inaugurated in 2018. Rich in content, collections, and historical narratives, the museum offers visitors an engaging, accessible, and academically rigorous immersion into the centuries-long journey of the Jewish people.

The exhibition route guides visitors from the Promised Land to contemporary Portugal, passing through the medieval period, the era of the Inquisition, the formation of Oporto’s modern Jewish community, the rediscovery of crypto-Jews, and the community’s revival beginning in 2012.

With themed rooms, multimedia spaces, a cinema room, an area dedicated to the awards earned by films produced by the community, and even a wine cellar featuring Port wine, the museum transforms the visit into a vivid encounter with Jewish history and culture.

The museum’s curator Hugo Vaz regularly welcomes school groups and Jewish tourists, leading tours marked by both expertise and heartfelt dedication.

^{Hugo Vaz welcomes school groups and Jewish tourists to the Jewish Museum of Oporto. Credit: CIP/CJP}

In conversation with PJN, Hugo Vaz shared details about his work and recalled some of the most meaningful interactions he has had with visitors.

PJN: Hugo, to begin with, tell us a little about your academic background and how long you have been connected to the Jewish Community of Oporto.

HV: I hold a degree in Archaeology from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, as well as a postgraduate diploma and a master’s degree in Museum Studies from the same institution. Subsequently, I attended the International School for Holocaust Studies (ISHS) at Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem.

I have participated in and organised numerous colloquia, seminars, conferences, and workshops, having also collaborated on various archaeological, historical, cultural, and tourism-related research projects for several Portuguese public and private entities, as well as on an international project for the European Commission in Italy.

Although I have been involved, since 2010, in the cataloguing of the Library and Archives of the Jewish Community of Oporto (CIP), it was chiefly from 2012 onwards that I became a permanent member of the Community’s Cultural Department, where I conduct historical research and structure the Educational Services devoted to combating antisemitism and promoting Jewish history and culture.

I have served as curator of both the Jewish Museum of Oporto and the Holocaust Museum of Oporto since their respective inaugurations in 2018 and 2021.

^{The Jewish Museum of Oporto presents the history of the Jews from the Promised Land to the present-day Jewish community in Oporto. Credit: PJN}

PJN: The Jewish Museum of Oporto receives, in addition to school groups, exclusively Jewish tourists. Based on your experience, which moments or sections of the exhibition most capture visitors’ attention?

HV: I would say, quite candidly, that the mere fact that the city of Oporto possesses a Jewish museum surprises a large proportion of Jewish visitors. Although some arrive already informed about the significant growth of the Jewish community in recent years, many are entirely unaware of its recent demographic, religious, and cultural development. Thus, when confronted with a museum capable of encompassing and communicating the millennia-old Jewish historical-religious tradition and the centuries-long Jewish presence in Portugal, many visitors display genuine astonishment.

Equally compelling to them is the academic and scientific rigour evident throughout the exhibition — whether regarding the Jewish presence in Portuguese territory prior to the Expulsion of 1496, the inquisitorial period, the subsequent Sephardic Diaspora and the eventual return of Jews to Portugal, and to Oporto in particular.

Finally, as one of the museum’s rooms is dedicated to our historical film productions, many visitors are moved to discover that several episodes of Jewish presence in the country have been portrayed in short and feature-length films available for public viewing.

PJN: Many of these visitors are Sephardic Jews. Do they often share family stories or memories during the visit? Are there any particularly striking examples you recall?

HV: Especially since 2015, Portugal — and by extension Oporto — has welcomed a growing number of Jewish tourists, many of them Sephardim of Iberian heritage now dispersed across the globe.

"A considerable portion of these visitors travel to Portugal specifically to gain deeper insight into their familial roots and into the land that, for centuries, was home to their ancestors. Consequently, they display great curiosity about Jewish life prior to the Expulsion of 1496, as well as about the current resurgence of Jewish life."

Over the years I have heard countless narratives: from families who preserve “ancient keys,” passed down through generations and said to have belonged to homes they owned before the Expulsion — objects similar to those also kept in the Museum — to the testimony of an Israeli couple of Greek origin who, upon reading the displayed letters, recalled through tears the vibrant Sephardic community of Salonika and the everyday use of Ladino before the Shoah (Holocaust) virtually annihilated the infrastructures and Jewish population of Portuguese descent long established there.

^{Set of keys taken by Sephardic families after the Expulsion of the Jews from Sepharad. Credit: PJN}

PJN: During the visit, are there aspects of Oporto’s Jewish history that tend to surprise tourists? Any details they seldom knew before arriving at the museum?

HV: Beyond surprising visitors with the size and vitality of Oporto’s Jewish community prior to the Expulsion, what most impresses them is, without doubt, the remarkable degree of tolerance and respect displayed over the centuries by the population of Oporto and by its civic institutions.

Indeed, Oporto possesses a notable record of esteem and hospitality regarding “its Jewish population.” This was evident when Isaac Aboab, the last Gaon of Castile — the foremost Sephardic rabbinic authority of his time — chose to negotiate with the Portuguese monarch his relocation to Oporto, together with thirty families, following the Expulsion of the Jews from Castile and Aragon in 1492.

Even during the inquisitorial period, when the Holy Office shaped the mentalities and actions of the Portuguese, Oporto — both its institutions and its people — displayed significant resistance to attempts at persecuting the New Christian families, the paradigmatic case being the great visitation of 1618, depicted in the feature film “1618”.

Thus, within a world-historical panorama marked by systematic persecutions and antisemitic acts over two millennia, many Jewish visitors are struck by the historically peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians in Oporto, with no known record of a pogrom.

PJN: Beyond curiosities and surprises, you must have experienced many memorable conversations over the years. Could you share a few?

HV: Every visit is, for me, a profoundly enriching experience. They offer a unique opportunity for interaction with thousands of Jews from the four corners of the world who, despite cultural differences, share a vast common heritage. Through them, I gain a finer understanding of global Jewish realities — of their collective memories, inter-community ties, institutions, museums, and many other aspects.

"However, among the countless conversations I have had, the most striking are invariably those related to the Shoah. Over the years, we have received Holocaust survivors as well as second- and third-generation descendants."

The visit that moved me most was that of an American couple of Polish origin. After a lengthy visit, the husband expressed deep interest in the passage of Jewish refugees through Portugal during the Second World War. After numerous questions and answers, he began recounting the story of his own life, eventually reaching the moment of deportation to a concentration and extermination camp. He described the superhuman effort required to preserve physical and mental integrity under conditions of extreme dehumanisation and recounted, towards the end of the war, his survival of the so-called ‘Death March’. As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeve and revealed the number tattooed into his flesh at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

After this profoundly moving testimony, and while the gentleman stepped aside to wipe away the tears streaming down his face, his wife embraced me and confided that, despite more than half a century of marriage, he had never before told her the story — not to her, nor to their children or grandchildren — thanking me for the atmosphere of Oporto and its Jewish community, which had finally allowed him to open his heart.

^{Session dedicated to the Jewish refugees who passed through Oporto in the 1940s. Credit: PJN}

PJN: Portugal, whose history is marked by the Inquisition, now witnesses the rebirth of Jewish life. The Jewish Community of Oporto, for instance, counts more than a thousand members and holds weekly minyanim. How do visitors react when they perceive this vitality?

HV: Once again, surprise is the predominant reaction. In an increasingly polarised world, where antisemitic discourse and acts are becoming ever more visible, many Jews are astonished to witness the vigorous growth of a Jewish community in a European city.

On the other hand, having already explored the city and the country, several of them recognise that antisemitism in Portugal stems chiefly from a “noisy minority.”

They interpret the growth of Oporto’s Jewish community as the outcome of multiple factors: the city’s safety and tranquillity, in contrast with other European urban centres; the expansion of local Jewish infrastructure, enabling a full religious life — from kashrut to family purity (including the mikveh), and everyday ritual observance in the synagogues; and, naturally, the protection at various levels inherent in community growth.

PJN: Has any visitor ever brought information, documents, or family accounts that helped enrich the history presented by the Museum?

HV: Yes, on numerous occasions. Part of the Museum’s collection originates from private holdings of Community members who, recognising the importance of our mission, contributed objects and documents that have significantly enriched the exhibition. In parallel, we have received many accounts relating to the history of Oporto’s modern Jewish community and to the family experiences of its various members.

Such contributions demonstrate that the Jewish Museum of Oporto is a living, expanding institution, continually nourished by elements arising from multiple origins: long-standing members, newcomers who have made Oporto their home, academics, and tourists who share fragments of their family histories.

^{Replica of the Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue displayed at the Jewish Museum of Oporto. Credit: PJN}

PJN: Another important facet of the Jewish Museum of Oporto is its engagement with students from various educational institutions, in a project to combat antisemitism and disseminate Jewish history and culture, carried out in concert with the Holocaust Museum of Oporto and the Oporto Synagogue. How do young visitors react to the Museum?

HV: Dozens of thousands of students from across the country — both mainland and islands — visit us each year. Whether they come from public, private, or corporate schools, teachers’ primary objective is to offer students an informed encounter with religious, historical, and cultural Judaism — a reality largely unfamiliar not only to young people but also to many educators.

Naturally, students’ reactions vary according to their respective family, socio-economic, educational, and cultural backgrounds. Even so, the general lack of awareness concerning the historical importance of Jews in the formation and development of Portugal remains considerable.

At the end of the visits — having dismantled antisemitic myths and having offered a first encounter with a reality far removed from their everyday lives — I am convinced that these young people leave more conscious, more sensitised, and more tolerant.

^{The Jewish Museum of Oporto is overseen by the Jewish Community of Oporto, which has over one thousand members. Credit: PJN}

About the Jewish Museum of Oporto

The Jewish Museum of Oporto is located directly across from the Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue. At this time, it is open exclusively to members of the Jewish Community of Oporto, school groups, and Jewish tourists, by prior arrangement.