A visit to the Belmonte Jewish community in Portugal
Arriving at the synagogue in Belmonte
Leah Jaya Bisquert Bertomeu coordinates the activities of Shavei Israel’s emissary to Spain, Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham. She and her family visited Belmonte, Portugal, earlier this year and Leah wrote a lovely description of the Belmonte community, its history, and the role that our emissary to Portugal Rabbi Elisha Salas plays in reviving Jewish life in the region. She’s given us permission to share her letter.
Nestled near the Serra da Estrela mountain range…dreaming in green, the green of wet moss and lichens…lies Belmonte, Portugal.
As we arrive, the people of Belmonte direct us to the synagogue. “Upward, up to the castle,” they tell us. Located in a quarter of ancient, narrow, cobbled streets, it is not hard to find. A big red door and an inscription in Hebrew welcome us to Bet Eliahu.
The synagogue is beautiful, wide, and made of wood. Inside, the prayers are said with excitement and spontaneous moments of emotion. We are there for the communal Passover Seder, which is familiar, simple and warm. We enjoy the dinner: a tasty green homemade soup and a lamb stew, which the women of the community made themselves with patience and dedication, proud to have the possibility of once again preparing a Seder for so many people.
The Belmonte community is a family, and not only in a spiritual way. This one is an authentic biological family in which the genealogical tree is filled up with a very few surnames. All the members are uncles or cousins, sons or siblings, brothers-in-law or mothers-in-law, sons-in-law or daughters-in-law. In this way, those who were forced in Portugal some 500 years ago to convert to Catholicism kept intact their Jewishness over the centuries.
While Belmonte’s Jews were transformed outwardly to “new Christians” (Bnei Anousim or Marranos) and isolated in the beautiful Serra da Estrela, they kept their traditions faithfully in secret, getting married only with their relatives. Going through the synagogue’s chairs you can read on the nameplates the same repeated surnames: Moráo, Henriques, Vaz, Diogo, Nunes, Mendes, Rodrigo. They lived, but did not mix, with others in their environment. They never failed to celebrate Yom Kippur, the fast of Esther (before Purim), and Passover. Yet, they only knew the dates of the holiday in reference to the fullness of the moon.
The modern Belmonte Jewish community was inaugurated in 1975, and then consisted of about 180 people. Several years later, through the determined advocacy by the Israeli Ambassador in Portugal, the community was able to formally return to Judaism through circumcisions, mikvaot (ritual baths), and weddings. Today, there are about half of the original 180 remaining: some have passed away, others moved to Israel.
Since 1975, the community has had three rabbis. The current Rabbi, Rabbi Elisha Salas, is the emissary of the Shavei Israel organization. In the tefilá (prayer) services for Passover, Rabbi Salas blesses every man before the Torah reading “for the love of G-d, love for the Feast of Passover, and love for his community.” This beautiful blessing includes their wives, children and grandchildren, wishing them intelligence, health, success.
Rabbi Salas also blesses the young people who are planning to study in Israel, so that they will find there their spouses and create a new Jewish home, building up the House of Israel. Moreover, he wishes for them that G-d will grant them wisdom in their studies and that they will become excellent rabbis themselves! For those who have already decided to make aliyah, he blesses them that their integration in Eretz Hakodesh (the Holy Land) will be easy and with peace, and that with happiness they will finally know all their “Jewish brothers” there.
Although he does not share one of the community’s surnames, Rabbi Salas has clearly earned his inclusion in the Belmonte family. As such, if community members feel they must disagree or argue with him, they do so – as family. With humble patience he enables them to follow the Torah.
The same Rabbi Salas also handles all the shechita (ritual slaughter) so that the community is provided with quality kosher meat. He also prepares challahs with the baker, so the families of Belmonte can have artisan-made challah to honor Shabbat. Furthermore, he supervises the kashrut of different regional products (including oil, wine and cheese). When he visits the villages in his rabbinical garb, people who respect Judaism, or who know that their ancestors were Jewish, approach him. He is well known throughout the region and often speaks to the media on Jewish topics.
Belmonte’s Jewish community seems in some ways to be an “ancestral greenhouse” of Judaism, one that is, little by little, being transplanted through aliyah to Eretz Israel, the Jewish home.
At the Seder on the second night of Passover, we learn that the community has a beautiful custom of celebrating Chol Hamoed (the intermediary days of the holiday) in the country together, and we are invited to go with them.
We gather together in a large picnic area, a few kilometers from the town. Each family sets up tables and canopies to protect them from the threatened rain. They bring plenty of food, drinks and games. Rabbi Salas roasts kosher meat on the barbeque and passes it out with love to all of us. The men play cards at the table; the young boys play soccer in the grass; and the girls play table games, while the women talk tranquilly. For the older members of the community, the day recalls happy moments because, as they relate to us, it was at this community celebration that, traditionally, they became engaged, one to the other, before marriage.
The time finally arrives for us to leave. It is very hard to say goodbye. During the three days we spent in Belmonte, the community entered our hearts forever. With the sunset, little by little, we say goodbye to every family, tears filling our eyes, with our best wishes; our warmest and most sincere hugs. We know that we won’t see most of them again, but we know, too, that their endearing memory will accompany us forever. We know that we are siblings and that all of us together form Am Israel (the people of Israel).
We pray that G-d will continue to bless the Jewish community of Belmonte, and to make them successful, because they are an authentic living miracle, one that tells us that G-d never abandons His people. His Providence fills all the earth, including the stunning Serra da Estrela mountains, green because of the wet moss and lichens, because His love is personal and unique for each of His sons.