Stones of Memory: Revelations from a Cemetery in Curacao (original) (raw)
Related papers
SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies Evening Lectures Series, 4th February, London, UK, 2015
My presentation will draw on the oral history of the Portuguese Jewish Community in XXI century using family histories and life stories of three generations in Portugal, particularly from the Jewish Community of Lisbon. The images that you are seeing here are from the synagogue of Lisbon, called “Shaaré Tikva” or ‘Gates of Hope’, from the beginning of the XX century, that has a symbolic meaning in the history of the Portuguese Jewish Community, in a country that is mainly Catholic by religion. This synagogue is a reflex of the social and historical relationship that was developed over centuries: the synagogue is in one of the main streets of the capital city, but at the time it could not be visible from the street because it was not Catholic. Today I will present the outcome of an anthropological, sociological and historical study over three generations of Portuguese Jews, especially focused on the history of the Sephardim and Ashkenazim in and out of Portugal from the XV century until the present day. I used an ethnographic methodology, doing an extensive ethnographic fieldwork for two years, that allowed me to do an oral reconstruction of their life stories and family memories until modern times, debating issues such as nation, belonging, religion and the meaning of being a Portuguese Jew nowadays. The reconstruction of their history is done taking in account the national and transnational narratives of Europe, Middle-East, Africa and America. It is my intention to contribute for an understanding of the national identity in Portugal and within Europe in a time when questions such as the right of belonging or living is becoming an important part of the public and private discourses. (The PowerPoint presentation is added by my lecture/text)
Recovering Jewish Identity in Contemporary Portugal
Contemporary Jewry (Springer), 2020
Portugal’s relation to its Jewish heritage is complex and marked by fears and distrust due to centuries of inquisition and another half century of national Catholic dictatorship during the twentieth century. It was not before the end of the twentieth century that Jewish Studies gained relevance, contributing to the discovery of the Jewish past both of the individuals interested in their Jewish ancestors and of the national collective identity. The generation of scientific knowledge and a widespread appreciation of the Jewish heritage by state institutions and official discourses have resulted in an implosion of congresses, courses, exhibitions and publications on the Portuguese Jewish past in the second decade of the new millennium. The recent Nationality Law, which grants nationality to the descendants of Portuguese-born Jews is an important milestone of this process. The article explores the process of recovering the Sephardic past as a lieu de memoire of Portuguese cultural ident...
Sephardic Women Between Dutch Atlantic Worlds, 1654-1680
E-Journal of Portuguese History , 2023
The fall of the Dutch colony in Brazil in 1654 sparked a period of upheaval and change for the colony's Sephardic Jewish community. Brazil had been a place of unprecedented liberties for the Jewish community there, and over the coming quarter century, the former inhabitants of the colony would search for a "new Brazil" and opportunities to create spaces for organized Jewish life in Atlantic colonies. Brazil had also seen Jewish family migration, and included in the exodus from Brazil and the subsequent resettling were Jewish women. Though their role is difficult to grasp through the colonial records, metropolitan sources allow for a more detailed understanding of the role of Jewish women in the Dutch Republic in pursuit of compensation for possessions and real estate lost in Brazil.
Jewish experiences and legacies in Portugal / Heranças e vivências judaicas em Portugal
Jewish experiences and legacies in Portugal , 2017
Dates are often the milestones we cling to when defining a scale in knowledge and feelings. In the field of Sephardic Studies, some central dates in the History of Portugal can be immediately listed. We speak of 1492, 1496/7, 1506 and 1536. Those were respectively the dates of the entrance in Portugal of the Jews fleeing from Castile, of the Portuguese banishment decree and the almost immediate forced conversion, of the terrible Lisbon massacre on April 19 and, lastly, of the establishment of the Holy Office Court, The Inquisition. Though subverting the principles of humanism, we could make an unexpected approach to the value of these dates in our History: why ponder on events over about half a millennium? Since so much time has gone by and there are almost no Jews in Portugal, what is the point of branding the dates and the memory with events and publications like the one we bring in the open, causing uncomfortable questions and situations to come up? In fact, this is not the posture of a society that likes to remember what is negative, either by masochism, or by morbid pleasure of looking at death in the eye and liking it. The tenor and the justification that lead us to want to look at Portugal’s past as a Sephardic reality, half a millennium later, lies within something much deeper, in our own consciousness. And in this depth of what is consciousness and the unconscious, some aspects need to be brought up towards a soft change of mindsets, so that we can meet again with our memory, with our identity, and with what we want to do of ourselves in the future. And rightly so, since when we look back on our memory, we do it based on choices and those choices show how we see the past, but define all the more how we will be in the present and in the future.