As part of the educational and cultural work that the Community has carried out with schools in all regions of Portugal, including the islands, there is a space that is rarely mentioned and yet which awakens great passion in young people.
The library of the Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue, in the city of Oporto, is a place where arts come together and complement each other. Architecture, literature and painting intersect here and take us through the history of the local Jewish Community.
Of all the objects on display in the Community library, paintings have been gaining more and more fans among school students, at a time when high culture is increasingly distant from the new generations.
The paintings are displayed in chronological order: Old time market, where the Jews were preeminent merchants. Religious Jews rule the community spiritually. Jews praying by the walls of Oporto, turned to face Jerusalem. A Beit Midrash. A ship filled with people leaves Portugal in the 15th century. The forced baptism of an adult Jew. An auto-da-fé of the Inquisition in Oporto. A map showing the destinations of the Portuguese Jewish Diaspora. An Ashkenazi wedding was held in a private house in Oporto in the early 20th century. Exterior image of the Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue, inaugurated in 1938. The Oporto community welcomes Holocaust refugees in 1940. A nun says Kaddish for a deceased Jew in 1982. A present day Sephardic wedding. Jews praying in Oporto synagogue. The President of the Portuguese Republic visits Oporto’s great synagogue. A greeting between the Bishop of Oporto and the Community of the city.
Two years ago, the Jewish Community of Oporto published a video showing its painting exhibition.
Flor Touti Mizrahi, a Venezuelan painter of the Jewish Community of Oporto coordinated a team of painters and interpreted the long history of Jews in the city. The artists were free to choose what techniques they wish to use in their paintings: oil, acrylic, photography and illustrations and each one should express a historic legacy.
"A picture is worth more than a thousand words'', said Mizrahi. "We wish to show our story as it has been since the beginning, when the Jews in Portugal were free to practise their religion and trade, then when they were expelled by the King and the Inquisition and up to the present day", she added.
The Community’s collection of paintings is not all housed in the imposing library of the Oporto synagogue. Other high-quality paintings are on display at the Jewish Museum of the city. Among them, one stands out regarding the role of the Jews in the founding of Portugal, another regarding their role in the development of the country until it became a world empire, a third refers to the edict of expulsion, and a last one portrays in the most sinister colors the genocide of Lisbon in 1506.
