The city of Castelo de Vide in eastern Portugal has decided to commemorate the flight of its Jewish residents under the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions of the 15th century.
Castelo de Vide Mayor Antonio Pita, who also serves as vice president of the Jewish Cities Network in Portugal, announced last week that the city would sponsor an initiative to mark the paths taken by Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and the Portuguese Inquisition in 1496.
The municipality of Castelo de Vide already maintains the remnants of the city's Jewish history, including a synagogue and Jewish quarter (Juderia). Soon the town expects to inaugurate the first museum in the world dedicated to the memory of the Inquisition that led to the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian península and to the suffering of Jews known as "conversos" or "crypto-Jews" who continued to cling to their religious beliefs and practices in secret.
The new project, titled "El Camino de Sefarad al muevo mundo" (The Sefarad Route to the New World) – is projected to cover thousands of kilometers tracing the movement of Jewish populations in Spain over the border into Portugal during the Middle Ages. The Inquisition refugees ultimately reached Lisbon and Porto, where they were forcibly converted or proceeded on to other destinations in North Africa, the Netherlands, the Land of Israel and the New World.
Walter Wasercier, vice president of Cámara de Comercio Hispano–Israelí (Hispanic-Israeli Chamber of Commerce) and former director of El Al in Spain and Portugal, has been appointed to coordinate the project, which was initiated jointly with Alan Schneider, director of the B'nai B'rith World Center-Jerusalem.
Schneider envisions Israeli and Jewish organizations joining the effort and expects that the marked route will be an attraction for both Jewish and non-Jewish visitors.
Outgoing Israeli Ambassador to Portugal Raphael Gamzou has also thrown his support behind the project. Other supporters include Assumpcio Hosta Rebes, secretary general of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ); Marta Puig Qixal, managing director of Caminos de Sefarad; and local and regional officials in both Portugal and Spain.