(Jewish Group) Porto's Jewish community unveils memorial to 842 victims of Portuguese Inquisition

[Behind the Aegis]

Porto’s Jewish community unveils memorial to 842 local victims of Portuguese Inquisition


Sebastião Feio, president of the Porto municipal general assembly, speaks at a ceremony dedicating the Portuguese city’s memorial to the local victims of the Inquisition, Sept. 3, 2023. Courtesy of CIP-CJP

In this city on Portugal’s northwestern coast, a small Jewish community has dedicated years to identifying its predecessors who were killed or expelled in the Portuguese Inquisition of 1536 to 1821.

Drawing on newly digitized records, the community was able to identify 842 people, ranging from 10 to 110 years old, who were victims of the Inquisition locally. On Sunday, it inaugurated a memorial engraved with their names.

The memorial, dedicated during a special event called the European Day of Jewish Culture, measures 13 feet wide by 6.5 feet high and is installed on an exterior wall of Porto’s Jewish Museum.

The museum is one of several institutions that have flourished in recent years as Porto, which is home to roughly 1,000 Jews today, has benefited from a swell of interest among tourists and descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the region who for the last eight years have been allowed to apply for citizenship.

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