The second number of the Newsletter of the Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa is dedicated to Robert Bachmann, a great donor of our future Museum, who unfortunately has recently passed away.
Robert Bachmann was born in Romania, studied in Barcelona and settled in Portugal after the 25th April Revolution. He was a remarkable businessman and, simultaneously, a bibliophile and a passionate collector of the Portuguese-Jewish heritage. He was fundamental for numerous researchers at an international level who, in 2018, paid homage to him by dedicating to him the work

"Portuguese Jews, New Christians, and New Jews" by Claude Sutczynski and Bruno Fleiter, and most especially for the Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa, which will eternalise his name by creating a Robert Bachmann Research Centre in the Museum. The continuation of his work is also our way of thanking him and his wife, the architect Graça Bachmann, for all their support in the creation of the Museum.

Esther Mucznik
President
Associação Hagadá – Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa

HIGHLIGHT
AEJM Annual Conference 2023

CONFERENCE

American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum 2023

Jean-Jacques Salomon, vice-chair of the Associação Hagadá - Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa, attended American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum 2023 in Tel Aviv, which took place from June 11 to 14.
While honoring International Antisemitism Envoys with the AJC David Harris award, AJC acknowledged the tremendous progress made since the nomination of the first of these envoys against antisemitism, in 2015.
Associação Hagadá is proud to share AJC’s values in its fight against rising ethnic and religious intolerance.
All information and videos available here.

COLLOQUIUM

National Day for Religious Freedom and Inter-religious Dialogue

As part of the commemorations of the National Day for Religious Freedom and Interreligious Dialogue (law no. 16/2001 of 22 June), a colloquium on "Democracy and Religious Freedom" was held on 28 June at the Passos Manuel Library in the Portuguese Parliament. Esther Mucznik, Chair of the Association Hagadá - Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa and member of the Commission for Religious Freedom, participated as a guest speaker in the event also attended by José de Sousa Brito, Counselor Judge (former president of the Reform Commission of the Religious Freedom Law), Maria Lúcia Amaral, Ombudsman and David Munir, Imam of the Central Mosque of Lisbon. The session was moderated by Deputy Fernando Negrão, President of the Commission for Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees of the Portuguese Parliament.

MUSEUMS
Laying of the foundation stone of Einstein House

On 13 June 2023, the foundation stone was laid for Einstein House in Jerusalem, a building designed by architect Daniel Libeskind to house the objects and archives of the celebrated Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein. The scientist bequeathed all his writings and intellectual property to the Hebrew University before he died in 1955. The archives arrived at the University in 1982 and currently include more than 82 000 articles.  
Einstein House will highlight the impact of Einstein's discoveries, his involvement in humanitarian and civil rights issues and his deep commitment to the Hebrew University in Israel and the global Jewish community. It will include a reconstruction of Einstein's library and office, as well as exhibitions of his original papers, including those relating to the theory of relativity and the manuscript that introduced the famous equation E=mc².

JEWISH CULTURE AND TRADITION
Tisha B'Av, 26 - 27 July

Tisha B'Av remembers the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, a symbol of Jewish spirituality. In the Synagogue, a black curtain is placed on the Holy Ark as a sign of mourning & the lights are turned off. Prayers mourn the destruction of the first and second Temples (586 BC and 70 AD, respectively) and other sad events, such as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the same month in July 1492.
During these days, Jeremiah's Book of Lamentations, known in Hebrew as Megillat Eicha, is read and is customary to fast.

EXHIBITIONS

The Portuguese Jewish Diaspora at the Covilhã Museum

From 10 to 24 May, the Covilhã Museum, awarded Museum of the Year by the APOM 2022 Awards, hosted the travelling exhibition The Portuguese Jewish Diaspora. 
As part of this exhibition, an informal talk was held on 11 May at 5:00 pm by one of the greatest scholars of Jews and New Christians in Portugal, Maria José Ferro Tavares. Under the theme "The Diaspora of the New Christians", the author explained that this theme is fully integrated into European expansion and the history of the various kingdoms. It consists of facts that have to do with the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal; forced baptism; the establishment of the Inquisition; the desire of New Christians to return to the religion of their ancestors in freedom, and a diaspora that is a departure, but sometimes also a return, with all the personal inconveniences that this entails.
The exhibition and the talk were part of the "MC2: Collective Cultural Movements" action.

by Sandra Ferreira, coordinator of the Covilhã Museum

PAINTING
Portrait of the Children of Francisco Lopez-Suasso
Constantin Netscher. Oil on canvas. c. 1709
Robert Bachmann collection.

In this painting, Constantin Netscher depicts five of the 10 children of Francisco Lopes Suasso and his second wife, Leonora (otherwise Rachel) da Costa (1669–1749): Antonio (1695–1775), Alvaro (1696–1751), Manuel (1698–1773), Pedro (1700–1742), Leonora (1701–1754), Jeronimo (1702–1740), David (1703–1705), Sara (1706–1767), Hanna (1708–1721) and Francisco (1710–1770). These descendants were part of a large family network of bankers. After it was painted, Lopes Suasso had five copies of this portrait made so that each son would have one.

Francisco Lopes Suasso (c. 1657-1710), second Baron d'Avernas le Gras was one of the leading bankers and financiers of the Dutch Republic. He was also known within the Sephardic Jewish community as Abraham Israel Suasso. Suasso came from a Portuguese-Jewish banking family that was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the course of the Inquisition. Francisco's date of birth is uncertain and is likely to have been

between 1657 and 1660. The family maintained close relations with Spain from Amsterdam and The Hague. In 1676, Antonio Lopes Suasso (1614–1685), his father, was raised to hereditary nobility by the Spanish King Charles II and was able to acquire the barony of Avernas le Gras in Brabant. Of particular historical significance was the loan of two million guilders granted by Francisco Lopes Suasso to the governor of the Netherlands, William III of Orange. With this, William financed his invasion of England in 1688, which led to the Glorious Revolution and elevated him to the English royal throne together with his wife Maria. 
Suasso died at The Hague on 22 April 1710, in his early fifties. He was buried in the Portuguese-Jewish cemetery called Ets Haim at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. He was succeeded in his business and as Baron d'Avernas le Gras by his eldest son, Antonio Lopes Suasso the Younger, alias Isaac Lopes Suasso (1695–1775).

Talk with Robert Bachmann

In this video, we embark on a voyage through the history of the Sephardic Diaspora, through some works, such as paintings and engravings, from the collection of Roberto Bachmann, a bibliophile, collector and remarkable entrepreneur.

THEATRE 

The Diary of Anne Frank 
Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon
26 Jul. to 8 Oct.
Wed to Sat 21:00 | Sun 17:00

Imagine yourselves hiding in an attic.
Immobile.
Silent.
For two years.
Deprived of your freedom because outside death reigns.
Anne Frank was only 13 years old when she was thrown into this cruel challenge, together with her parents, sister, a couple friend with a child and a man. Of these eight people, only one survived, Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father, who later decided to tell the world about his daughter's diary who died in a concentration camp at 15.
In this diary, the young Anne describes the period in which she survived the Nazi persecution that, between 1941 and 1945, killed more than 6 million Jews, and leaves us a testimony full of resilience and hope that continues to inspire generations to this day.
More information available here.

CONFERENCES   

V International Colloquium Luso-Sephardic Dialogues
Castelo de Vide
9-10 November 2023

The V International Colloquium Luso-Sephardic Dialogues will take place in Castelo de Vide on 9 and 10 November 2023.
These colloquiums are cultural events that seek to offer proximity bridges between university research and local communities, open to scientific reflection and dialogue, to the sharing and dissemination of research results, to the knowledge and encounter of the history of the Sephardic presence, especially in the territories of Lusophony, but also in its manifestations of cross-border and multicultural diasporas.
More information is available here.

CONFERENCES  

II CIES - International Congress of Sephardic Studies
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
16-20 August 2023

The II CIES - International Congress of Sephardic Studies, an initiative of CEJA (Centro de Estudos Judaicos da Amazónia), will take place from 16 to 20 August 2023 and will be held at the Palácio do Museu da República, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This congress is held every two years,
More information available here.

BOOKS

Tomar – A comunidade judaica – Entre as teias do judaísmo e do catolicismo (2021)
by Maria José Ferro Tavares. Câmara Municipal de Tomar.

This work presents in-depth research on the Jewish community of Tomar, focusing on the Inquisition proceedings, which are an essential source of information.
It is a remarkable and fundamental book, but simultaneously painful, because of the violent theme and, above all, because of the perception of how denunciations of the practice of Judaism often came from within the very families of the accused.

BOOKS    

As Comunidades Sefarditas e a Nação Portuguesa de Antuérpia (Séculos XVI e XVII) (2021)
by Florbela Veiga Frade. Edições Colibri.

This work by Florbela Veiga Frade, resulting from her doctoral thesis in 2007 and updated with data from subsequent research, constitutes an important milestone in the historiography of Sephardic communities and business networks. Besides the conceptual reflection, the author addresses, in the three long chapters, questions of Sephardic identity, the emergence of a new economic model, and the functioning of mercantile networks and power games. She also delves into the issues of discrimination, persecutions, general pardons, migration flows and the functioning of the Sephardic community in Antwerp. The appendix includes eight fold-out genealogies of the most important Sephardic families.

BOOKS

Alto Mar, Breve história da longa vida do Grupo Bensaúde (2020)
Wonder\Why Stories.

This book tells, for the first time, the story of the Bensaúde Group between 1820 and 2020, which achieved something unusual in the Portuguese economy: remaining active and prosperous over two centuries, specialising in several radically different markets - energy, tourism, maritime and logistics, distribution, transport, banking, insurance, tobacco, alcohol, among others.
But this is not a literal chronological narrative: it is divided into seven epochs of transformation. Each chapter examines the conflicts that marked an era, explains how each leader dealt with them, and what the Group looked like after overcoming them. The final chapter summarises the various ages and gives an insight into what it all meant. 
This book was created and edited by WonderWhy Stories (WonderWhy branding).

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Story Boat (2020)
by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Rashin Kheiriyeh. Tundra Books
Translated and published in Turkey (Albaraka Yayınları, 2020), Brazil (Companhia das Letras, 2021), and Germany (Zuckersüß Verlag, 

When you have to leave behind almost everything you know, where can you call home? Sometimes home is simply where we are: here. An imaginative, lyrical, unforgettable picture book about the migrant experience through a child's eyes.
When a little girl and her younger brother are forced along with their family to flee the home they've always known, they must learn to make a new home for themselves  -- wherever they are. And sometimes the smallest things -- a cup, a blanket, a lamp, a flower, a story -- can become a port of hope in a terrible storm. As the refugees travel onward toward an uncertain future, they are buoyed up by their hopes, dreams and the stories they tell -- a story that will carry them perpetually forward.
This timely, sensitively told story, written by multiple award--winner Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Sendak Fellowship recipient Rashin Kheiriyeh, introduces very young readers in a gentle, non-frightening and ultimately hopeful way to the current refugee crisis.

DOCUMENTARIES

Young et moi (2015)
by Sophie Nahum

This documentary follows actor Tomer Sisley's quest to follow in the footsteps of a historical figure that fascinates him: Victor "Young" Perez. In the 1930s, aged only 21, this young Tunisian became a world boxing champion. Arrested in 1943 by the French police, he was deported to Auschwitz. There, the director of Buna-Monowitz had him participate, along with other prisoners, in boxing matches organised to entertain the SS.
From Paris to Tel Aviv via Poland, Tomer Sisley met the last witnesses to Perez's life, some of whom were survivors of the Nazi camps.
More information is available here.

FILMS    

1618 (2022)
directed by Luís Ismael

In 1496, King Manuel I decreed the expulsion of the Jews. Almost two centuries later, the Inquisition continued its persecution, sending the Visitor Sebastião Noronha to Porto. Seeing his family in danger, António Álvares, a new Christian and a merchant, decides to devise an escape plan.
More information available here.

Write to us: tikva@mjlisboa.com

FICHA TÉCNICA
Editorial coordination: Esther Mucznik 
Contents and editing: Ângela Ferraz, Esther Mucznik, Manuel Morais Sarmento Pizarro and Maria João Nunes
Graphics: Joana Cavadas

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