On the last Thursday before we returned home from Penamacor, I took myself off for an hour or two and finally made it to a place I had been planning to visit since reading about it in Penamacor’s municipal quarterly magazine, at the end of our previous visit in March.
Two-and-a-half years ago, I devoted a post to Ribeiro Sanches, Penamacor’s most celebrated son, born to a couple of conversos at the very end of the 17th Century, who went on to become a prominent physician and a genuine son of the Enlightenment. Fairly early in his career he felt uncomfortable in post-expulsion Portugal and subsequently travelled extensively through Europe and wrote on topics ranging from venereal disease to the theory of education and from the climatic effect of the Lisbon earthquake to jurisprudence.
In a later post, I wrote about looking for the site of his childhood home in Penamacor. “However, when I arrived at the exact spot, I saw, rather than a centuries-old structure, what looked more like an airport warehouse. I walked all the way round it, and found only one door and no windows.
“As I was wondering whether I might have mistaken the location, I took a closer look at the door and noticed the unusual design of the very large doorknob. Clearly, there is an interesting story here, which I hope to find out more about on our next visit (whenever that turns out to be).”
Well, a couple of weeks ago, I revisited the site and started to get to the very bottom of that story.
As I walked up the hill to the site, through the old Jewish quarter, I noticed for the first time, on one of the original stone doorframes, the tell-tale indentation of what was originally a recess for a mezuza. To read about such evidence of a Jewish presence in the past is interesting. To ‘discover’ it for yourself is surprisingly moving.
Next to the ‘warehouse’ was another building, clearly recently renovated, which turned out to be (deep breath, and, ideally, a drumroll) Casa da Memória da Medicina Sefardita António Ribeiro Sanches (The António Ribeiro Sanches House Commemorating Sephardic Medicine). Built on the site of Ribeiro Sanches’ house, this museum, which opened last December, is devoted to both Portugal’s Sephardic medical heritage in general, and Ribeiro Sanches’ life in particular.
My visit to the museum started inauspiciously. I had expected to be the only visitor. However, as I walked through the village, I saw a number of groups of children, all wearing the same baseball caps; I soon realised that they were three different age groups of children attending a municipal summer day-camp program. As my walk progressed, I realised, with a sinking feeling, that they all seemed to be heading in the same direction as me. Sure enough, I arrived at the museum two minutes after 25 fairly well-behaved but still quite noisy children. Fortunately, after hearing a brief lecture and watching a short film, they all left, and I was able to continue my tour in blissful isolation.
The museum is purely expository, and includes no actual relics, other than a copy of Ribeiro Sanches’ most famous book. However, it contains an impressive body of information, displayed fairly drily but visually attractively. Interestingly, all of the texts are displayed in Portuguese and English (in a translation that is mostly fairly good but occasionally poor-to-average).
The ground floor of the museum is devoted to the Sephardi contribution to medicine. One wall lists the names of hundreds of Sephardi doctors. This photograph shows about half of the wall.
You may also notice the boy in a kippa just turning the corner. He is one of the sons of an Israeli family that have bought land outside Penamacor that they plan to farm and on which they are building a family home. Meanwhile, they are renting a house in the village.
Most of the ground floor of the museum consists of 15 or so individual display panels, each devoted to a different prominent Jewish doctor, with the selections ranging through the centuries. To be honest, this feels a little like overkill; it is difficult to sustain interest through all 15 panels, although each of them in isolation tells an interesting story.
This selection is introduced as ‘The Sephardi Diaspora’ and a feature wall offers the quote “To the Portuguese Jews, who had nothing left but the exile.”
A plaque opposite the wall of names that I mentioned earlier draws attention to the large number of “doctors, physicians, surgeons and chemists of Moses Law that soon emerge from a society that is mainly Christian, where discrimination of minorities always existed and where intolerance assumed a growing burden, from segregation to persecution, culminating in prison, torture and death, ordered by the Holy Office.”
Here I found the answer to the question that had been intriguing me. I had been wondering how, if at all, a museum celebrating the Portuguese Jewish contribution to medicine would address the official persecution of Portuguese Jewry, the Inquisition and the Expulsion. Clearly, this would not be the central theme of the museum. At the same time, there is no question that Penamacor’s most famous son would not be as famous as he is were it not for the fact that he felt so unwelcome in his own country that he left it for a more tolerant greater Europe, in which he flourished.
Last week, I found a quotation that I have been unable to locate again. I believe it was attributed to the actor Wendell Pierce, but I am not certain.
Culture [is] that intersection between the events of life itself and how a people deals with it.
Part of the interest of this museum for me is the insight it offers into how the Portuguese are dealing with particular events of Portuguese history. Ana Mendes Godinho, Portugal’s secretary of state for tourism, has stated that: “Our history is completely bonded to Jewish history. Now is the moment to take down walls [of anti-Semitism built by the Inquisition]. Today we say ‘every Portuguese has a Jewish bone in their body’.”
Gabriel Steinhardt, president of Lisbon Jewish Community, has stated that visitors can feel safe wearing a kipa or a magen David in Lisbon, and that it is not uncommon to be approached on the street by a Portuguese citizen who says, for example, that his grandmother still lights candles on Friday nights. Unlike other European capitals, in Portugal, “you can walk in the street as a proud Jew.”
A plaque at the entrance to the museum gives further insight into the possible motivation behind the museum. It states that the museum, funded with the support of a European Economic Association (EEA) grant, is part of the Portuguese Network of Jewish Quarters. According to an official European culture website “Established in 2011, this is the public association gathering places of historic and current Jewish communities in Portugal. It aims to act jointly to defend urban, architectural, environmental, historical and cultural heritage in connection with Jewish heritage, by combining the recovery of history and heritage with the promotion of tourism.”
My observations are, necessarily, very marginal, and it may be dangerous for me to draw any broad conclusions, but it seems to me that at least a significant part of the motivation for this embracing of Portugal’s Jewish history is economic, driven by a desire to boost tourism.
But let’s get back to the museum. The first floor is devoted exclusively to Ribeiro Sanches, and his extraordinary journeys through Europe’s capitals and contacts with so many leading figures of the Enlightenment. An excellent interactive (and again fully bilingual) map charts his route and, at each stop, the user can call up biographies of the prominent people he met. This same information is presented in wall panels. Other panels give insight into Ribeiro Sanches’ philosophy, displaying facsimiles of his letters and works, and offering quotes from his work. Taken together these panels are a striking testimony to his range of interests and intellectual energy.
Which leaves only one unresolved mystery – the windowless, anonymous, Magen-David doorknobbed ‘warehouse’ next door.
Online research reveals that it is part of the same project and is (very deep breath and a drumroll and cymbal clash) a small synagogue. Yes, dear reader, it’s the story of my life. As always, I find myself living at the other side of town and a steep hill away from the shul.
Ever since reading this fact, I have tried to understand the purpose of the synagogue. Here is what Penamacor’s mayor has to say: “[The] combination [of museum and synagogue] preserves the identity and cultural heritage and should also provide significant ‘added value’ in terms of promotion and tourist attraction. Casa Ribeiro Sanches will be another great piece from the point of view of cultural attractiveness for Penamacor”. He further stresses that anyone who wants to get to know the Network of Jewish Quarters in Portugal can now start their journey through Penamacor.
Exactly who is envisaged as using the synagogue (which is not a reconstruction or replica, as far as I can ascertain), and for what purpose, is not clear to me. Obviously, this is a field for further research on my next trip.
Meanwhile, up in Zichron, Raphael has been catching up on his reading while waiting for us to visit him.
I found the dedication: “To the Portuguese Jews who had nothing left but exile.” particularly poignant. Thank you for sharing.
I agree tourism is behind much of the resurrection of Portugal’s Judaic history.
I was upset and angry in Prague by the many, many groups of tourists listening to the history of “the Jews” by their tour leader who was Czech but not Jewish as there are no Jews left to speak for themselves.
I insisted on going to Friday night services in the Schul so as to demonstrate that despite all “we are still here”.
I have kept a photo of a very angry me beside the Maharal’s tomb. I hadn’t realised my anger was so visible until I saw the photo.
I didn’t feel so angry in the Jewish barrios of Andalusian Spain. Perhaps the passage of centuries removes the anger and leaves just sadness at the disappearance of such vibrant communities?
Very interesting.
David, next time you move somewhere/buy a property, make sure that it’s at the highest point in town. (On the other hand, then you’d have to walk uphill on the way back from shul…)
We are virtually at the highest point of the village. Unfortunately, the centre of the village is in a mini-valley, and the shul is halfway up the opposite slope. So it’s uphill in both directions. We should, of course, have bought in the Jewish quarter….but then we’ve never done that.