Dear friends,

Pope Francis' visit to Portugal has led us to choose the situation of religious freedom in Portugal as the theme of this editorial.

Some people believe that an event like the one that took place in Lisbon last August, the World Youth Day 2023, makes no sense in a secular state. We don't share that opinion: firstly, the state is not "secular", it's neutral, which is different. And every country has a dominant religious culture, which comes from its historical past and which is embraced by the majority of its population, which in itself is not or should not be an obstacle to the free and public expression of other religious cultures, nor to their equal rights.

In Portugal, both are established in the post-April 25 Constitution and, in particular, in the 2001 Religious Freedom Law which, in essence, recognises the different non-Catholic religious communities as having the same legal, individual and collective rights as the Catholic Church. This doesn't mean that there aren't religious or secular extremists who don't understand that freedom doesn't come at the cost of silencing others.

Pope Francis has a very clear vision of the value of religious diversity and, above all, the importance of dialogue between different religions. It's a vision that isn't limited to his own religious family, but one that extends to the whole of humanity.

In Portugal, inter-religious dialogue exists, not only in the Religious Freedom Commission itself, in which the main religions rooted in the country are represented, but also through joint participation in public events, as happened during Pope Francis' visit.

Diversity of beliefs and/or ethnicities is a factor of social enrichment, which is only possible in a democracy.

At the Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa, this diversity will always be present, whether in the long-term exhibition or in future temporary exhibitions, and especially through the work of the Cultural Mediation Service.

Esther Mucznik
President
Associação Hagadá – Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa

HIGHLIGHT
Opening of the exhibition "The Portuguese Jewish Diaspora" at the Interpretation Center of the Jewish Community of Torres Vedras

MEETINGS
Meeting with Pope Francis

"Lisbon smells like flowers and the sea". This was the beginning of Pope Francis' speech at the meeting with high authorities, representatives of the diplomatic corps and civil society, attended by Esther Mucznik, at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, within the framework of the Commission for Religious Freedom. Highlighting Portuguese society's multi-religious and multi-ethnic nature as an example that many European countries should follow, Pope Francis cited the Mouraria neighbourhood in Lisbon as a cosmopolitan neighbourhood where people live together peacefully.

Pope Francis also spoke about the importance of the climate crisis, the oceans, the need for peace, security and solidarity between peoples, and above all, the importance of human capital: "We want a Europe that cares about young people and all human beings, especially children who don't have enough to eat," pointing out that discontent leads to populism. "Where are you going West?" he asked.

Pope Francis ended his speech by saying, "God bless Portugal".

SEMINARS
3rd Seminar on Jewish Heritage

Ângela Ferraz, collections manager at Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa, participated in the third edition of the Seminar on Jewish Heritage organised by the Rothschild Hanadiv Europe Foundation and the University of Amsterdam. The seminar took place between 27 August and 1 September in Amsterdam, focusing on five main themes: "The library as Jewish heritage", "Representation / Religion", "Jewish spatiality and narrativity", "History and memory", and "The Future of Jewish Heritage".

Combining academic presentations, practical workshops, case studies and study visits, this seminar was an opportunity to deepen knowledge with specialists working in museums, archives, libraries and research centres. It also allowed to establish contacts with professionals and researchers with a view to future collaborations, partnerships and the sharing of resources.

JEWISH CULTURE AND TRADITION
Rosh Hashanah
15-17 Sept. 2023

According to tradition, it is on Rosh Hashanah that each person is judged for the coming year and it is on Yom Kippur that the final decision is made.

Rosh Hashanah takes place on the 1st of Tishri in the Jewish calendar, the day of God's creation of man in Jewish religious tradition.

It opens a period of introspection that will last ten days, the so-called "yamim noraim", the (terrible days) until Yom Kippur. Why are they called the ten terrible days? Because each person is called to make an examination of conscience, without complacency, in order to start "a new life".

JEWISH CULTURE AND TRADITION
Yom Kippur
24-25 Sep. 2023

Yom Kippur takes place on the 10th of Tishri in the Jewish calendar. It is the day every Jew individually and collectively cleanses himself of his sins through repentance, asking for forgiveness from those he has offended before asking for it from God.

In reality, Kippur allows every human being to atone for sins committed against God, but not for those committed against other human beings unless they ask them directly for forgiveness.

For Jews, the day of Kippur is a day of atonement, a day of total fasting (25 hours), recollection and prayer in which any kind of material activity is forbidden.

The celebration of Kippur is based on Leviticus in the Torah:

"Here is a perpetual law: in the seventh month, on the 10th day, you shall humble your souls, you shall do no work,...for on that day we will make atonement for you, to purify you."

The fast ends with the sounding of the Shofar, which is meant to awaken the conscience and call for self-evaluation. It is the appropriate time for a Jew to decide to become a better person.

The day of Kippur is so important to Jews that the Marranos continued to fast in secret even during the Inquisition. As well as a duty, the day of Kippur is also a right: the right to compassion and righteousness.

ENGRAVING
View of the Portuguese Jewish synagogue in Amsterdam
Pieter Fouquet. Engraving. c. 1770 - 1780.
Tikvá Museu Judaico Lisboa collection.

Engraving of the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam, seen from Markenplein (now Mr. Visserplein). In the foreground a lively street scene with pedestrians, shopkeepers and animals.

Below is an inscription in Dutch and French: “Gezicht van de Portugeesche Jooden-Kerk, / van de Breestraat te zien, tot Amsterdam. / te Amsterdam vy P. Fouquet junior.”; Vue de la synagogue des Juifs Portugais, / à Amsterdam. / à Amsterdam chez P. Fouquet junior.

Pieter Fouquet (1729 - 1800). Also known as Pierre Fouquet Junior, he was born in Amsterdam on February 28, 1729, and made a name for himself as an art dealer, painter and publisher of prints.

He became a member of the St. Luke's Guild in 1753, but he has no known paintings. In 1754, he married Benine du Rege.

He was active in Amsterdam between 1759 and 1800 and is known to have visited Paris regularly between 1780 and 1789. In 1767, he bought around 53 Rembrandt engraving plates at the auction of Pieter de Haan's estate. In the same year, he sold them to Claude Henri Watelet. In 1783, he published the famous Atlas of Amsterdam.

He died in Amsterdam on April 11, 1800.

Kol Nidrei

Kol Nidrei, (Aramaic: “All Vows”), a prayer sung in Jewish synagogues at the beginning of the service on the eve of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). In this video, the prayer is performed by Cantor Azi Schwartz, at the Park Avenue Synagogue.

CONFERENCES 

49th ICAMT International Conference
Porto
25-27 Oct. 2023

The International Committee for Architecture and Museum Techniques (ICAMT) of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) annually organises an important international conference that gathers experts from different areas, namely museography, museum studies, architecture and exhibition design.

The ICAMT 49th International Conference 2023 will be hosted by the University of Porto between 25 and 27 October 2023, under the theme “Undoing conflict in museums: materiality and meaning of museum architecture and exhibition design”. The Transdisciplinary Research Centre “Culture, Space and Memory” (CITCEM) and the Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies (CEAU) are the entities responsible for the organisation of this event.

More information available here.

CONFERENCES   

V International Colloquium Luso-Sephardic Dialogues
Castelo de Vide
9-10 Nov. 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.

COURSES  

Course in Jewish Heritage
Central European University
Jan.-Apr. 2024

The Central European University (CEU) in Vienna is calling for applications for an English-language Course in Jewish Heritage.

This special course will be taught from January to April 2024 by staff from CEU’s programs in Cultural Heritage Studies and Jewish Studies. It is a new opportunity for academic training for European heritage professionals and students.

This course, which will take place partly online and partly on-site in Vienna and Budapest, has scholarships available. The deadline for applications is October 1.

More information available here.

WEBINARS

SHIFT Project Webinar: accessible & inclusive cultural heritage content
The Heritage Management Organization (HERITΛGE)
18 sept. 2023
12:00 - 13:00 GTM

This webinar celebrates this year’s European Heritage Days organized by SHIFT (MetamorphoSis of cultural Heritage Into augmented hypermedia assets For enhanced accessibiliTy and inclusion), an international project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Program to make cultural heritage more inclusive and accessible through technology.

SHIFT’s online event will explore the innovative tools being developed by the SHIFT Consortium to improve the accessibility, inclusivity, and appeal of cultural heritage content.

More information available here.

THEATRE   

The Diary of Anne Frank 
Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon
26 Jul. - 8 Oct. 2023
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.

BOOKS

Já posso dizer a verdade (2015)
by Henrique Sequerra. Chiado Books.

Throughout their lives, twin brothers Samuel and Joel Sequerra covered their humanitarian activities in favour of refugees from the Nazi nightmare with a cloak of silence. Even today, their closest relatives regret not knowing much about the odyssey that took up most of the 1940s. What had to be done was done, they always argued, and that was that.

Giving to others without wanting anything in return is the nature of heroes. And that's what the twins did while risking their lives in Franco's Catalonia, defying the powers that be and often circumventing the law to offer a glimmer of hope to the desperate people crossing the Pyrenees in search of peace.

Seven decades after the end of the Second World War, it's time for this history to be recognised and deepened. It's never too late to return to the road of public recognition and fulfil the journey of memory.

BOOKS

Arrancados da Terra
by Lira Neto. Objetiva.

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, being Jewish in Portugal and its colonies meant living under a regime of permanent terror. The Inquisition, or Tribunal of the Holy Office, was a true state within the state, with absolute powers to repress religious crimes, of which professing Judaism was one of the most serious. Denounced by enemies, or even by relatives under the duress of the inquisitors, Jews who refused summary conversion were subjected to prolonged imprisonment and torture.

Insisting on the damning error of apostasy led to the stake. All they had left to do was hide or flee. Thousands of Sephardic Jews left Portugal and settled in other European countries, particularly the Netherlands, where a thriving Israeli colony of Lusitanian origin developed in the early decades of the 17th century. Safe from censorship and repression, a brilliant generation of rabbis, intellectuals and revolutionary thinkers flourished.

After the Dutch invasion of north-eastern Brazil in the 1630s, many Jews crossed the ocean to try and make a better life for themselves. And there they prospered, until the return of the Portuguese yoke and the Inquisition, which forced them to restart their incessant journey in search of the New Canaan.

From the prisons of the Holy Office to the hope of the New World, renowned journalist and biographer Lira Neto maps the wandering lives of the pioneers who formed the first Jewish community in the Americas, in Recife, and who helped build New York.

BOOKS

Judeus Portugueses na América - Uma Outra Diáspora (2021)
by Carla Vieira. Esfera dos Livros.

Liberty, which since 1886 has welcomed anyone approaching Manhattan with a flame in their hand, holds at its feet the memory of a diaspora with origins on the other side of the Atlantic. Emma Lazarus, the poem's author engraved on the statue's pedestal, traced her ancestry to a Jew from Lisbon who arrived in New York City in 1738. But the story of Portuguese Jews in North America had begun much earlier, when, in the mid-17th century, the ship St Catrina arrived in New Amsterdam with 23 refugees from Recife on board. The journey continued over the following decades and centuries, full of unforgettable characters. From the patriotic rabbi to the merchant prince, from the revolutionary hero to the daguerreotypist of the Wild West, from the matriarch who wrote poems to the doctor who catalogued Virginia's ailments, this book revisits these and other stories of Portuguese Jews who marked the beginnings of the United States of America.

DOCUMENTARIES

The Architecture of Doom (1989)
by Peter Cohen.

In Undergångens arkitektur (original title), Peter Cohen postulates a theory that the Third Reich's obsessive pursuit of an ideal society was in part a fulfillment of its leaders' own aborted creative careers. Using archival footage underscoring National Socialism's obsession with purity and order, and contrasting it with the so-called "degenerate" work of the German avant garde, Cohen attempts to draw parallels between Hitler's own subjective aesthetic views and his systematic extermination of millions of European Jews.

DOCUMENTARIES

Naquele dia em Lisboa (2022)
by Daniel Blaufuks.

A film that is a photograph expanded in time from films discarded in 1940 by the director of photography and later Oscar winner Eugen Schüfftan. The narration is by Bruno Ganz, who recounts the passage of refugees through the Portuguese capital.

MUSEUMS & DOCUMENTATION CENTRES

Genocides of the 20th century
Le Mémorial de la Shoah

The term genocide first appeared during the Second World War, when in 1944 the Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin described it as "the practice of exterminating nations and ethnic groups".

The term "genocide" was subsequently used retrospectively for the systematic massacre of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa (1904-1908), that of the Armenians by the Turks (1915-1916), and finally that of the Tutsis in Rwanda (1994).

Through its exhibitions and activities, Le Mémorial de la Shoah makes an overview at the history of these three other genocides of the 20th century.

Information available here.

Travelling exhibition "The Portuguese Jewish Diaspora"

The Hagadá Association has joined the Paris-based publisher Chandeigne in the Portuguese version of the exhibition "The Portuguese Jewish Diaspora".

If you are interested in receiving this travelling exhibition, please contact us by e-mail: tikva@mjlisboa.com.

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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