LAW OVERVIEW
HISTORIC REMEDY
Decree Law no 30-A/2015, Feb 27
In 2015, Portugal passed law no30-A/2015, February 27, offering Sephardic Jews and their descendants Portuguese citizenships to redress the historic wrong of their persecution and expulsion under the Inquisition.
Provisions of the Law
Sephardic Jews are hereby designated as Jews who descend from the ancient and traditional Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula.
The presence of those communities in the Iberian Peninsula is very old, even preceding the formation of the Christian Iberian kingdoms, as it happened with Portugal from the 12th century onwards.
From the end of the 15th century, and after the Alhambra Decree (1492), having those Jewish communities been subject to persecution from the Spanish Inquisition, many of their members then took refuge in Portugal.
However, King Manuel I of Portugal, who had initially enacted a law that would guarantee their protection, determined that, starting in 1496, all Sephardic Jews (also known as marranos) who would not subjected themselves to Catholic baptism would be expelled. Therefore, a number of Sephardic Jews were expelled from Portugal by late 15th century – early 16th century.
Generally, these peninsular Jews established themselves, with others, in countries like the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey, as well as in regions in North Africa and, later, in American territories, namely Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and the United States of America (USA). Despite the persecutions and the departure from their ancestral territory, many Sephardic Jews of Portuguese origin and their descendants retained not only the Portuguese language, but also the traditional rites of the ancient Jewish cult in Portugal, conserving for generations their family names, objects and documents that proved their Portuguese origins, paired with a strong memorial relationship that leads them to call themselves “Portuguese Jews” or “Jews from the Portuguese nation”.
Generally, these peninsular Jews established themselves, with others, in countries like the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey, as well as in regions in North Africa and, later, in American territories, namely Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and the United States of America (USA). Despite the persecutions and the departure from their ancestral territory, many Sephardic Jews of Portuguese origin and their descendants retained not only the Portuguese language, but also the traditional rites of the ancient Jewish cult in Portugal, conserving for generations their family names, objects and documents that proved their Portuguese origins, paired with a strong memorial relationship that leads them to call themselves “Portuguese Jews” or “Jews from the Portuguese nation”.
DECREE LAW No 30-A/2015, FEB 27
With the “conversão em pé” (standing conversion), the name by which was known the forced conversion of Jews commanded by King Manuel, Jews officially stopped existing in Portugal, remaining only Old Christians and New Christians, the latter designation hiding the Jewish origins.
During the Inquisition Period, many of these New Christians and Portuguese Jews managed to escape and leave the Kingdom, for some regions of the Mediterranean (Gibraltar, Morocco, Southern France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria), Northern Europe (London, Nantes, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam), Brazil, the Antilles and the USA, among others, creating there highly renowned communities and founding notable synagogues, such as the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, the Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, the Touro Synagogue in Newport (Rhode Island – USA), the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal and the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue in Recife, Brazil.
In the beginning of the 19th century, some descendants of Sephardic Jews, who had taken refuge in Morocco and Gibraltar, returned to Portugal, the first modern Jewish cemetery having been created in 1801, next to the British cemetery in Lisbon. In 1868, by a charter from King Luís I, it was granted to “the Jews of Lisbon the permission to install a cemetery for the burial of their coreligionists”, the cemetery in Rua D. Afonso III, in Lisbon.
Even today, many Sephardic Jewish family names keep the Portuguese matrix, although, in some cases, it got mixed with the Spanish one.
In the Diaspora of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, there subsist, between others, family names such as:
Abrantes, Aguilar, Andrade, Brandão, Brito, Bueno, Cardoso, Carvalho, Castro, Costa, Coutinho, Dourado, Fonseca, Furtado, Gomes, Gouveia, Granjo, Henriques, Lara, Marques, Melo e Prado, Mesquita, Mendes, Neto, Nunes, Pereira, Pinheiro, Rodrigues, Rosa, Sarmento, Silva, Soares, Teixeira and Teles.
DECREE LAW No 30-A/2015, FEB 27
In the Diaspora of Latin America, there are kept, for example, among others, the following family
names:
Almeida, Avelar, Bravo, Carvajal, Crespo, Duarte, Ferreira, Franco, Gato, Gonçalves, Guerreiro, Leão, Lopes, Leiria, Lobo, Lousada, Machorro, Martins, Montesino, Moreno, Mota, Macias, Miranda, Oliveira, Osório, Pardo, Pina, Pinto, Pimentel, Pizarro, Querido, Rei, Ribeiro, Salvador, Torres and Viana.
In other regions of the world, there are also descendants of Sephardic Jews of Portuguese origins that maintain, besides the aforementioned names, among others, the following family names:
Amorim, Azevedo, Álvares, Barros, Basto, Belmonte, Cáceres, Caetano, Campos, Carneiro, Cruz, Dias, Duarte, Elias, Estrela, Gaiola, Josué, Lemos, Lombroso, Lopes, Machado, Mascarenhas, Mattos, Meira, Mello e Canto, Mendes da Costa, Miranda, Morão, Morões, Mota, Moucada, Negro, Oliveira, Osório (ou Ozório), Paiva, Pilão, Pinto, Pessoa, Preto, Souza, Vaz and Vargas.
Besides the family names and the usage of the Portuguese language, namely in rites, even today, there are descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews that speak among each other the Ladino, a language used by the Sephardics expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 15th century, derived from Spanish and Portuguese, and currently spoken by around 150,000 people in communities in Israel, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Morocco and in America, among many other places.
The Act will allow the descendants of Sephardic Jews of Portuguese origin who desire so, to claim their right to return, by acquiring Portuguese nationality by naturalization, and their integration in the national community being granted, with its co-relative rights and obligations.
