Portuguese city to commemorate Jewish flight

The city of Castelo de Vide in eastern Portugal has decided to commemorate the flight of its Jewish residents under the Inquisition in the late 15th century by marking the paths taken by Jews forced to flee.

Mayor Antonio Pita, who is also vice president of the Jewish Cities Network in Portugal, said the city would sponsor an initiative to mark the routes taken by hundreds of Jewish families between 1492 and 1496.

  The new project – called El Camino de Sefarad al nuevo mundo (The Sefarad Route to the New World) – will cover hundreds of miles and trace the movement of Jewish populations during the Middle Ages.

Castelo de Vide already maintains the remnants of the city’s Jewish history, including a synagogue and Jewish quarter (Juderia), and hopes 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 Peninsula.

 The Inquisition refugees ultimately reached Lisbon and Porto, where they were either forcibly converted or managed to board ships bound for abroad.