Marranos is a term for Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted to Christianity, either voluntarily or by Spanish or Portuguese royal coercion, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who continued to practice Judaism in secrecy or were suspected of it. They are also called crypto-Jews, the term increasingly preferred in scholarly works over Marranos.
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews".
Ouro Preto, formerly Vila Rica, is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Minas Gerais. The city, a former colonial mining town located in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains, was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO due to its Baroque colonial architecture. Ouro Preto used to be the capital of Minas Gerais from 1720 until the foundation of Belo Horizonte in 1897.
The history of the Jewish community in Belmonte, Portugal, dates back to the 13th century; the community was composed of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who kept their faith through crypto-Judaism.
The history of the Jews in Portugal reaches back over two thousand years and is directly related to Sephardi history, a Jewish ethnic division that represents communities that originated in the Iberian Peninsula. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Portuguese Jews emigrated to a number of European cities outside Portugal, where they established new Portuguese Jewish communities, including in Hamburg, Antwerp, and the Netherlands, which remained connected culturally and economically, in an international commercial network during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Belmonte is a municipality in the district of Castelo Branco, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 6,859, in an area of 118.76 km2.
The community of Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, was of major importance in the seventeenth century. The Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands did not refer to themselves as "Sephardim", but rather as "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation." The Portuguese-speaking community grew from conversos, Jews forced to convert to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal, who rejudaized under rabbinical authority, to create an openly self-identified Portuguese Jewish community. As a result of the expulsions from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1496, as well as the religious persecution by the Inquisition that followed, many Spanish and Portuguese Jews left the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search of religious freedom. Some migrated to the newly independent Dutch provinces which allowed Jews to become residents. Many Jews who left for the Dutch provinces were crypto-Jews. Others had been sincere New Christians, who, despite their conversion, were targeted by Old Christians as suspect. Some of these sought to return to the religion of their ancestors. Ashkenazi Jews began migrating to the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century, but Portuguese Jews viewed them with ambivalence.
The Synagogue of Tomar is a former Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 73 Rua Dr. Joaquim Jaquinto, in the historic center of the city of Tomar, in the Santarém District of Portugal. The medieval synagogue was completed in the Gothic style by c. 1460, and was active as a synagogue until 1496, when Jews were expelled from Portugal.
Shavei Israel is an Israel-based Jewish organization that encourages people of Jewish descent to strengthen their connection with Israel and the Jewish people. Founded by Michael Freund in 2002, Shavei Israel locates lost Jews and hidden Jewish communities and assists them with returning to their roots and, sometimes, with aliyah. The organization's team is composed of academics, educators and rabbis.
Ethnography and History Museum of Póvoa de Varzim is a museum with a maritime and ethnic theme located in the Portuguese city of Póvoa de Varzim. The museum is located in Solar dos Carneiros, former home of the Viscount of Azevedo.
The history of the Jews in Mexico began in 1519 with the arrival of Conversos, often called Marranos or "Crypto-Jews", referring to those Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism and that then became subject to the Spanish Inquisition.
The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue, also the Porto Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 340 Guerra Junqueiro Street, in the civil parish of Lordelo do Ouro e Massarelos, the municipality of Porto, in the northern region of Portugal.
The history of the Jews in Chile dates back to the arrival of Europeans to the country. Over time, Chile has received several contingents of Jewish immigrants. Currently, the Jewish community in Chile comes mainly from the migrations occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, mostly of Ashkenazi background.
Sephardic Bnei Anusim is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jews who were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th centuries in Spain and Portugal. The vast majority of conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, and their descendants, who number in the millions, live in both of these countries. The small minority of conversos who emigrated normally chose to emigrate to destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but some of them emigrated to more tolerant cities in Europe, where many of them immediately reverted to Judaism. In theory, very few of them would have traveled to Latin America with colonial expeditions, because only those Spaniards who could certify that they had no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were supposed to be allowed to travel to the New World. Recent genetic studies suggest that the arrival of the Sephardic ancestors of Latin American populations coincided with the initial colonization of Latin America, which suggests that significant numbers of recent converts were able to travel to the new world and contribute to the gene pool of modern Latin American populations despite an official prohibition on them doing so. In addition, later arriving Spanish immigrants would have themselves contributed additional converso ancestry in some parts of Latin America.
The history of the Jews in Peru dates back to the country's Spanish period with the arrival of migration flows of Sephardic Jews from Europe, the Near East and Northern Africa. This small community virtually disappeared as a result of the Inquisition, and a second migratory wave revived it only during the mid-20th century due to World War II, with a number of Ashkenazi Jews arriving to the country's capital, Lima, through neighbouring Callao, where they also settled. In addition to the aformentioned groups, a separate community known as the Amazonian Jews have resided in and around the northern city of Iquitos since the late 19th century.
Samuel Schwarz, or Samuel Szwarc, was a Polish-Portuguese Jewish mining engineer, archaeologist, and historian of the Jewish diaspora, specifically of the Sephardic and crypto-Jewish communities of Portugal and Spain. He is known for his rediscovery of the Jews of Belmonte, Portugal, and restoration of the Synagogue of Tomar.
The Holocaust Museum of Oporto is a Holocaust museum founded in 2021.
The Jewish Museum of São Paulo is a Jewish museum in São Paulo, Brazil. It holds exhibits on Jewish life in Brazil and a collection of over 2,000 items brought over by immigrants to Brazil.
The Beth-El Synagogue is a Reform Jewish congregation, synagogue, and Jewish museum, located on Rua Avanhandava, Bela Vista, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Built in 1929, the synagogue has the distinction of being the first synagogue building in São Paulo. Consecrated in December 1929, construction of the temple was financed by a number of Jewish families in São Paulo and organized by Salomão Klabin. The synagogue's architecture is notable as the building has seven sides.
