Before King Manuel decreed the forced conversion, the Jewish community of Tomar built a synagogue, in spite of attacks orchestrated against them and other Jews in the country. Unfortunately, the building was used for its original purpose for only a short period, after which \u2013 for years and years after the forced conversion \u2013 it was used by the Church. The town itself became one of the sites of the Inquisition tribunal. Today, the synagogue has been renovated and is considered a national monument.<\/p>\n
Crypto-Jews continued to covertly practise Judaism. In the town of Porto, for example, the Crypto-Jews secretly operated a synagogue, hiding it from the Inquisition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up an amazing find. Hidden behind the eastern wall of the dining room was a Torah ark, or aron kodesh<\/i>, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour. There were two compartments, a square space topped by a slightly larger arched tablet-shaped opening, with space for approximately six small Torah scrolls. Besides this relatively recent discovery, we have the 16th-century testimony of Immanuel Aboab, a native of Porto. (The late Yom Tov Assis, who was a professor at Hebrew University, had likewise been trying to locate where such an aron kodesh was located in the area.)<\/p>\n It was common among Crypto-Jews to light one Shabbat candle in a secret cabinet. There was also an emergency tool for snuffing out Shabbat lights if it was suspected that a Christian neighbour was spying. To make Shabbat different from other days, these secret Jews ate no meat. Purim was marked by three days of fasting beforehand. Passover was celebrated two days late, so as to throw Christians off the track. Other secret Jews took the risk of undergoing circumcision.<\/p>\n Within limits, these Crypto-Jews read psalms and recited the Shema, didn\u2019t work on Shabbat, didn\u2019t eat pork and fasted on Yom Kippur. Manuel (Abraham) de Morales passed out manuscripts of what he thought were important points to know about Judaism. But most of the Jewish customs were orally transmitted from mother to children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Not surprisingly, the period before the forced conversion was not totally free of tension between Jews and Christians: Franciscan and Dominican clergy walked through judiarias, ready to convert Jews. Moreover, Portugal\u2019s new merchant class was apprehensive about the influence of the Jewish citizens and their capital. Under the reign of Jo\u00e3o I (1385-1443), new laws obliged Jews to wear an identifying sign on their clothes and imposed curfews on the\u00a0judiarias. There were scattered outbreaks of violence, like the attack on the Lisbon\u00a0judiaria\u00a0in 1445, in which many died.<\/p>\n After\u00a0the forced conversion, New Christians would be charged with being infidels, not heretics. These New Christians generally adopted Christian\u00a0given names and Old Christian surnames. They probably did this to deflect attention. But harder times still followed for Portuguese Jews, with\u00a0the massacre of 2,000 conversos in Lisbon in 1506 and the\u00a0Portuguese Inquisition, which began in 1536. Inquisitors would come to a town and tell the gentile population that they were looking for secret Jews. They would present a list of suspicious behaviour to look for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In medieval\u00a0Portugal, turning in New Christians became a profitable venture. Arrested conversos had their assets seized by members of the Inquisition. Occasionally, Church officials would accept bribes for temporary pardons.<\/p>\n Apparently, if a New Christian approached an inquisitor, he had a chance of redeeming himself by admitting that his family lit Shabbat candles or washed sheets for Shabbat. On the other hand, if an Old Christian accused a New Christian of still practising Jewish rituals and the latter denied the observances, he would face a worse outcome from his trial. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/dec-13-history.13.Resilience-secret-aron-kodesh-in-what-is-today-a-Portuguese-senior-adult-facility.jpg\")
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