Crypto-Jews in Portugal -

A Clandestine Existence

Eduardo Mayone Dias

from HaLapid, Winter, 2000

 

It is conceivable that during the worst periods of persecution by the Inquisition many of the Portuguese Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism in 1497 who could not leave the country, certainly the poorest families, without any means to buy their freedom abroad, may have sought refuge in mountainous areas on the northeastern strip of Portugal bordering Spain, as far away as they could get from the agents of repression. Such was their isolation that many believed their individual communities represented the only Jews in the entire world.

Living among Christians, they had to give the appearance of following the same religion. Mosaic cult could only be observed in their homes under maximum secrecy. It was exclusively by means of a strict code, lasting even to our days, that the basic doctrine and tradition could be preserved in an underground fashion for approximately five hundred years. Still, as Cecil Roth put it:

 

…it is obviously impossible for any integral Judaism of any sort to flourish under conditions of stealth, uninstructed and isolated, cut off from the outside world and mimetically divided even within itself.¹

One of the first tactics to be adopted was abandonment of circumcision, since obviously any circumcised male falling prey to the so-called Holy Office would be immediately suspected of Judaizing. Also gone were all the writings in Hebrew (except medical texts) and all objects utilized in Jewish rituals, such as menorahs, mezuzahs, mizrahs, shofars, ceremonial knives used for circumcision, Torah covers and talliths. (The tallith was sometimes replaced by a scarf with which rezadeiras, the female officiants that had taken the place of rabbis, covered their heads.)

In order to compensate for the loss of sacred texts, some handwritten prayer books were compiled in later years. One of them known as the Rebordelo manuscript (Rebordelo being a village in the province of Tras-os-Montes) is divided into two parts. The first part, containing a vast number of prayers for different occasions, shows a handwriting that seems to date back to the eighteenth century. The second part is composed of a series of recommendations for leading a moral life. In addition, the book transcribes a folk ballad about a Jewish troubadour who elopes with his beloved, whom her father wanted to marry to a rich man, and registers family events such as births, weddings² and deaths. Apart from these collections, the Old Testament was the only source of Jewish knowledge at the conversos disposal.

Ceremonies likely to attract public attention were forsaken. Thus celebrations such as Sukkoth, Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah ceased to be observed. Purim was celebrated for a time, but it will have to be assumed that it must have had an indoor character. Ritual killings of lambs and cattle were no longer publicly performed. The mikvah vanished from existence and old religious hymns were silenced. It appears that the practice of sweeping the house from the doorway into a room, rather than from inside out, often mentioned in the Inquisition proceedings, was eventually abandoned. (Also common among Sephardic groups in the Diaspora its purpose is to avoid desecrating the mezuzah by sweeping the garbage past it.)

On the other hand, Crypto-Jews had, through the ages, to resort to different camouflage strategies for their survival. The superficial acceptance of Catholicism included perfunctory church attendance and the use of Catholic symbols in an attempt to neutralize possible suspicions. In the former judiaria in the city of Guarda, for instance, crosses sculptured on the façades of some houses can still be seen. Some of the handwritten prayer books were disguised with Catholic formulae and concealed Jewish symbols. A prayer included in one of them is titled Ave Maria (Hail Mary), but its contents have nothing to do with the text of the Catholic counterpart, an obvious attempt to masquerade its true nature. (In recent times jews