presence of jews in the azores and portuguese jewish surnames

[emmanuel lopes]

Jews in the azores and portuguese jewish surnames

greetings,     regarding the presence of jews in the azores, i have posted several articles and information from various sources such as surnames from the 1604 "levy"  for the general pardon amongst new christians in the azores, as well as notarial records from the 17th century in amsterdam which often have reference to the azores.     the surnames bemsaude, benarus, sequeira,  etc. refer to jews who immigrated to portugal after the demise of the inquisition around 1770, albeit the inquisition was not formally abolished until 1821 by a liberal  national assembly.     in the 1770's, the marquis de pombal, portugal's  enlightened despotic "prime minister", abolished the distinction between new christians and old christians and invited jews back to portugal. accordingly, sephardic jews, that is, jews whose ancestors were from the iberian peninsula but had fled the realm after the spanish expulsion of 1492, and  the forced baptism of 1497 in portugal (mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries),  returned to form communities in lisbon, faro, sao miguel, terceira and faial where there are extant cemeteries. those communities also had synagogues. Pedro Merlin, deceased, wrote a book about the Jews of Terceira, "Os Hebreus da Terceira".(?)      the lisbon community dates from 1804. the lisbon synagogue, which was restored in 2004, was built in 1904. in faro there is a museum of the jewish cemetery. the cemetery in Faial which i have visited has about 17 tombs and  the one in Terceira about 50 (last burial in 1961 or so in both cemeteries, Faial later). I have not visited the cemetery in Sao Miguel. I have also read that there are several tombs in Flores but i am not aware of any actual evidence of such burials.     little is known about the early settlement of the azores by jews. for example, witness the name of "Porto Judeu", a village in Terceira. i have heard that the original name of Terceira, 'Island of Jesus Christ" was changed due to the majority jewish presence on that island, but again have not seen any actual documenatry evidence.     professor drummond braga has written an unpublished phd thesis on azorean jews and muslims  in the portuguese inquisition from which i extracted the 1604 census information.      i have also  translated the trial of the first Azorean woman to be burned in the inquisition (Maria Lopes from Sao Miguel (A native of Viseu), 16th century) which i hope to publish along with the trials of 6 other women in the portuguese inquisition.     this is an area crying for research but so far has been largely neglected. for example, there is a dearth of information about the jewish connection with the origin and rituals of the brotherhood of the holy spirit (irmandade do espirito santo).     assuming that surnames of plants such as Oliveira, Silva, Pereira are Jewish is too simplistic; they may be, but not necessarily  so.  there is no hard and fast rules about portuguese jewish surnames. when portuguese jews were forced to the baptismal fonts in 1497, they were often given the names of their christian godparents. sometimes they adopted names from their places of birth.     there are very few records indicating a person's jewish name and their adopted new christain name in 1497.     in my opinion,  the best source to determine the "jewishness" of a portuguese surname is probably the records of the inquisition housed in the national archives, torre de tombo. in addition, there are several good dictionaries and internet resources. manuel azevedo http://ladina.blogspot.pt/

[MaryAnn Santos]

Excellent!  Highly informative.  Thank you for clarifying some of these issue around Portuguese Jews.

MaryAnn

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[Guida Leicester]

Excellent info!  Obrigada. Manuel Azevedo was my grandfather's name.  He was born and raised on São Jorge Island.  Although there are no hard and fast rules regarding names--how prominent is the name 'Azevedo' among Portuguese Jews?

Manuel, Do you know Stan Hordes, New Mexico historian/professor on crypto-Jews here in the Southwest region of the USA?  I think I came across your name via Stan several years ago.

Best,

Guida Leicester

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From: emmanuel lopes <emmanu...@gmail.com>
To: azo...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 3:22 AM
Subject: [AZORES-Genealogy] presence of jews in the azores and portuguese jewish surnames

[Shirley Allegre]

Hi:  You sparked my curiosity.  My husband's AZEVEDO line is from Rosais, Sao Jorge, Azores.

Do you know which village your Manuel Azevedo was from?

Shirley in CA

[Guida Leicester]

Fajã dos Cubres--not sure how close these two villages are, but perhaps we could be related?

Guida

---

From: Shirley Allegre <shi...@digitalpath.net>
To: azo...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 11:44 AM

[Shirley Allegre]

I don't see a FAJA DOS CUBRES on the map that I have of Sao Jorge.

Do you know which other villages it is near?

[Katharine]

FWIW, one of my great-grandfather Noronha's great-grandfathers
(perhaps born in mid-18th century?) was Capitam Bento José de AZEVEDO
Machado, in Topo, São Jorge (opposite of island from Rosais,
however). Don't know if that's any help. Katharine.

[Katharine]

FWIW = "For what it's worth"-- in other words, I don't know whether it
will be useful to anyone, but it's worth a try (= "vale a pena" in
Portuguese). Katharine.