MARRANO TOURS OF PORTUGAL

(Customized narrated group tours- contact Ladina at ladina.sefarad@gmail.com)



SAMPLE PROGRAMME ( WITH OPTION OF BEGINNING AT BEVIS MARKS-LONDON)

LONDON

Thursday

6.30pm-Reception

Friday

Morning 11.30 Walking tour of the “Old Jewish Quarter” by London walks which includes a visit to Bevis Marks. (http://www.walks.com/London_Walks_Home/Fridays_Walks/default.aspx#12886)

Afternoon Seminar: Introduction to the Portuguese Marranos in England.

Evening Shabbat dinner at Bevis Marks (http://www.bevismarks.org.uk). Participants are welcome to attend shabbat services.

Saturday

Free day. Participants are welcome to attend shabbat services at Bevis Marks.

Sunday

Morning 11 am-Walking tour of Jewish east London, Sephardic Jews under Oliver Cromwell and the role played by the Sephardim in the East End. The tour includes a visit to the Sephardic cemeteries Velho and Novo and the site of the great Sephardic Beth Holim. Tour by Clive Bettington of
Jewish East End Celebration Society. (http://www.jeecs.org.uk)

Afternoon Visit to the Jewish Museum of London which contains many treasures donated by the Sephardim of Portugal and Spain.

Evening Seminar: The London Marranos Committee which helped build the only synagogue in Europe in the year of Kristalnacht, will examine the role of such luminaries as Lucien Wolf, Cecil Roth and Paul Goodman, president of the Committee.
Presented by JackWhite.(http://www.jackwhite.net/iberia/index.html)


Monday

Travel to Porto.

Evening Seminar: Introduction to Portuguese Jewish history and the Marranos.

Tuesday

Morning Travel to Braganza by bus (3.5 hours). (Bus talk-The Marranos of Northern Portugal).

Afternoon Walking tour and visit to art gallery. Tour by Emilia Nogueiro (http://historia-e-arte.blogspot.com)

Evening Seminar-The Marranos of Braganza in the 18th century and the Inquisition, Fernanda Guimarães

Wednesday

Morning Seminar: DNA study and the Marranos of Northern Portugal by PHD candidate Inês Nogueiro.
http://noticias.up.pt/img_upload/judeus_braganca
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122685415/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.cryptojews.com/Tras-os-montes.lbi

Afternoon Visit to Carção, capital of Marranismo (1.5 hours by bus-talk-Marrano resistance and rituals in Carção). Walking tour by Paulo Lopes (http://www.almocreve.pt/). (lunch in Carção).

Evening Return to Porto (Bus talk- Captain Barros Basto, the Apostle of the Marranos). Visit Amarante (45 minutes from Porto), birthplace/burial site of Captain Barros Basto (Kaddish ceremony at cemetery).

PORTO
Thursday

Morning Walking tour-The Olival Judiaria, birthplace of Uriel Acosta (Gabriel da Costa ), perhaps the world's first secular Jew. Baruch Spinosa (Bento de Espinhosa) was 8 years old at the time of his tragic death.

Afternoon Visit the studios of Jose Rodrigues, renowned Marrano artist and sculptor.

Evening Seminar: Spinoza, the Marrano of Reason and Barros Basto, the Marrano Mirage , Alexander Teixeira Mendes, founding member of Ladina and author of, Barros Basto, A Miragem Marrana (http://ladina.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-post_4083.html.)


Friday

Morning Walking tour of Miragaia Judiaria.

Afternoon Seminar: Captain Barros Basto, the Portuguese Dreyfuss and the campaign for his rehabilitation. Jorge Neves, founding member of Ladina, filmmaker (http://alfandegafilmes.blogspot.com/), and vice-president of the Israeli Community of Porto (http://comunidade-israelita-porto.org).

Evening Shabbat dinner at Kadoorie synagogue, the “Cathedral” of the Marranos. Participants are welcome to attend Shabbat services.

Saturday

Free day: Participants are welcome to attend Shabbat services at Kadoorie synagogue.

Sunday

Literary Club of Porto

Morning Seminar: The Marrano/Sephardic pioneers of the USA


Evening -dinner wrap up

NOTES

1. The tour will be conducted in English. Where a presenter does not speak English, simultaneous translation will be provided.

For more information please contact Ladina at ladina.sefarad@gmail.com

LADINA JEWISH HERITAGE WALKING TOURS



Engraving by Jean Picard, 'Manner of Burning'*
Lisbon, Praça do Comercio (Blackhorse Square) before the great earthquake of 1755

* (The vicitms of the Inquisition did not actually burn to death, they were slowly roasted, death ensued usually after 2.5 hours!)

MEDIEVAL JEWISH LISBON



MEDIEVAL JEWISH LISBON

This 3-hour heritage walking tour starts in the Rossio, near the palace of the Inquisition and ends in the Judiaria of Alfama. Jews have lived in the Iberian Peninsula long before the Christian conquest of Lisbon in 1147. For the first three centuries after the birth of Portugal they prospered and served their king and country. They were shoemakers, doctors, astronomers, cartographers, boticaries, poets, blacksmiths, jewellers, traders, lawyers, financiers, civil servants, government ministers, dyers, tax collectors, tailors, etc. By 1492 they made up approximately one quarter of the Portuguese population.

Then fanaticism and intolerance reared its ugly head. First the Catholic monarchs kicked the Jews out of Spain in 1492, then Portugal in 1496. But the Machiavellian Portuguese King, Manuel I, had a plan. He had no intention of losing his most valuable subjects, so he made them all Catholics, one country, one religion.

In 1497 he forcibly baptized all the Jews of Portugal. He permitted only a few to leave, such as Abraham Zacuto, his personal physician and astronomer who developed the navigational tables that enabled Vasco da Gama to reach India and propelled Portugal into a world power.

After 1497 there were supposedly no more Jews in Portugal, only New Christians or Marranos, that is to say, Catholics on the outside but Jews in their hearts. The king expected to solve the Jewish ‘problem’ in a generation but the Marranos survived the flames and torture of the Inquisition for over 250 years, even though many were burned alive. In 1506 between 2,000 and 4,000 New Christians were slaughtered during three days of rioting in Lisbon. The national archives contain over 40,000 Inquisition files.

Come learn their story on this tour. You will also learn about the origins and destruction of downtown Lisbon as well as historical monuments and architecture.
(ladina.sefarad@gmail.com)

Rossio, National Theatre, formerly the Palace of the Inquisition

Judiaria of Alfama