Oct 31 and Nov 1 Belmonte, Portugal

 We arrived at Belmonte on Oct 31.  A surprise was in the lobby, an Israeli flag next to Portuguese flag (first image). The hotel (Sinai) advertised itself as kosher but the restaurant didn't have a mashgiach. This was, I think, because the sabbath observing Jewish population couldn't provide one full time.

The local Jewish population is enough to support a synagogue, however (we saw the synagogue on Nov 1). The synagogue was paid for by a wealthy benefactor. Beth, George and Ann are in the second image taken at the front of the synagogue (this synagogue had no obvious security - at least we didn't see any). 

Belmonte has a population of only about 3000 (or as many as 7000 depending on what you count) and is somewhat out of the way (near the eastern border of Portugal) so maybe they think they don't need it. 

The third image is looking out one of the windows in the sanctuary. It is a beautiful view of a valley and the mountains in the background are the ridge that lies on the Spanish border. 

The Jewish population of Belmonte has been decreasing for several years. People who are inclined toward more religious observance are going to Israel. People who are inclined toward more financial success are going to Lisbon or London or similar places.

The fourth image show some the artwork near the window in the third image. 

The origin of the Belmonte Jews is a bit of a mystery. The normative story is that the survival of the community is due to the women of the community. They were the ones who arranged marriages exclusively within the community (endogenous marriage). They were the ones whose crypto Jewish customs were crypto enough to hide from the inquisition and Jewish enough to keep the community together. Examples of such customs include lighting candles in clay pots on Friday night and observing a fast before Easter and around the fall equinox (all these examples are based on the writings of Mr Schwartz - see below). This is all probably mostly true.

However,  the community was known by locals as being of Jewish descent but apparently the Inquisition never convicted anyone in Belmonte of practicing secret Judaism.  This, despite the fact that people who reported secret Jews to the Inquisition frequently received a monetary reward upon conviction.  This, also despite the reported ferocity of the inquisition (which did do things like dig up people who died during their trial and burn their corpse).  This despite the fact that many people in the general region were convicted by the inquisition. Furthermore, the feat of totally endogenous marriage in a small community for several hundred years is hard to reconcile with what is known about human curiosity of association.



The Belmonte Jews were publicized in the early 20th century by a Polish mining engineer named Samuel Schwarz. Schwarz also documented the various crypto Jewish customs. In the 1990s there was a communal conversion (or reversion) of the Belmonte Jews to formal Judaism.

The fifth image is of a stone which was discovered locally and is in the museum in Braco or this museum (one had a copy, the other had the original I think or there may even be more than one copy). 

According to the museum's exhibit when we were there, it had not been deciphered (the website jewishwikipedia says it is a quote from Habbakuk 2:20 and is dated 5057, i.e., 1297 in Christian and secular calendar*). The museum speculated that perhaps the inscriber of the stone didn't know Hebrew perfectly. It has, per the museum, also not been determined if the stone was part of a synagogue or a grave marker (the jewishwikipedia says it was probably part of a synagogue). 

The sixth image is the front of the museum. 

This museum of Jewish Belmonte, which is owned and operated by the Portuguese government, opened in 2005. Since then, there have been about 4000 to 10,000 visitors a year to this otherwise out of the way town.  This has had, it is said by several sources, a noticeable positive effect on the local economy. 

The seventh image is of one of the narrowest alleys we saw in a peninsula of many other narrow alleys.  

It would actually be a challenge to deliver a 16" pizza through this alley (you could carry it but the typical delivery cart is too wide. Yet the alley is clean and it looks like the stones have been set beautifully. 

The eighth image is George in front of a statue of Pedro Alvares Cabral. This statue was placed in a park in Belmonte in 1961 near to our hotel. Cabral was the Portuguese explorer who discovered, explored and claimed Brazil for the Portuguese Kingdom.

*This seems like it might plausibly be what is on the lower part of the stone. The end of 2:20 Habakuk is, in English "Silence before him, all the world".  If this is for a synagogue, it may be that someone was sending a message wanting less idle talk during prayers. Anyway in Hebrew the end of the verse is: 

הַס מִפָּנָיו, כָּל-הָאָרֶץ