Well, ‘left’, actually, but that doesn’t scan. Unlike John Denver, we do know when we’ll back again (or at least, we have a notification from the airline that we’re booked on a plane – plague, war, global warming, fossil fuel supply and Portuguese electoral turmoil permitting).

Yes, folks, today’s post comes to you from the edge of the Judean Desert, rather than just southwest of the edge of the Serra de Malcata foothills. Bernice and I flew back, fairly uneventfully, last Thursday, and, thanks to the kindness of good friends and neighbours, on which we have always depended, we returned to a welcome home greeting placard and a delicious cake, and invitations for both shabbat meals. (Reminder to self: I must celebrate more often the precious gift of being part of a community.)

This was just as well, since we had left in Maale Adumim a fridge that looked like that moment two days before Pesach when it has just been cleaned and has not yet been stocked. Homemade rolls were duly defrosted in the microwave, but the frozen cheese had to wait until the next morning. I was reduced to jam made from loquats from our own tree. (I suppose that’s a first-world problem, on reflection.) Bernice made do with the last-but-one of our magnificent Portuguese apples, and we both finished off our nuts (and in my case raisins) for the journey. And so to bed, after thirteen-and-a-half hours on the road.

In fairness, the trip home was pretty easy. The drive to Lisbon airport from Penamacor takes, on a good day, two-and-a-half hours. However, for all but 50 minutes of that, you are cruising at 120kph on a two- or three-lane motorway, with 95% of the other traffic on the road also cruising at 120kph.

The only problem with this is that you occasionally creep up behind a car whose speedometer is set slightly differently, so that its cruise control is maintaining a speed just 1kph slower than yours. Assuming you pull out to overtake when you are 20 metres behind the car, and pull in again when you are 20 metres in front, overtaking can take you between two and three minutes (or you can live dangerously and exceed the speed limit for a few seconds).  

Mind you, since we only saw about 40 other vehicles during that entire motorway stretch, I was able to handle the overtaking required. The other bonus is that the airport is located only 1km off a three-lane road with an 80kph speed limit, so the end of the journey is also stress-free.

Check-in at Lisbon was very smooth. Multiple self-service terminals issue boarding passes. Baggage check-in is also self-service. At passport control only passports are checked. In this way, any hold-up over incorrect or incomplete PCR test papers occurs at the departure gate, where it inconveniences only passengers on the same flight, and where sorting out any problem does not involve risking missing your flight.

The Covid test at Ben Gurion was also a swift and smooth operation. Boaz (our friend who always gets use of our car in return for ferrying us to and from the airport) was, as always, waiting for us when we arrived. We even received our negative test results within seven hours, so that I was able to get to shul on Friday morning, and then buy fruit and milk for breakfast.

This was all in contrast to the PCR test in Portugal, which we scheduled for last Tuesday. Micha’el had told us that the nearest testing site was at the Red Cross in Castelo Branco. When I phoned them on the previous Friday to book, they explained that the testing is actually done by a private lab, which travels round from district to district, and uses a room in the Red Cross. I phoned the lab, and was told that they would be in Castelo Branco from 9:30 to 11:00 on Tuesday morning. Since we didn’t want to rush unnecessarily in the morning, we made an appointment for 10:30.

I then received an email with a questionnaire, delightfully translated into English, asking for the usual details, and some unexpected ones – desired harvest station (in other words, test location), nationality, profession (why?), postcode in Portugal, passport number, internal diameter of nostril (I jest). Once I had retrieved all of this information from my phone and sent it back, I then simply had to transfer the fee (100 euros each – that’s a total of 720 shekels, 171 pounds, 231 dollars) and provide proof of payment.

This caused me a minor panic: I transferred the money online, through my Portuguese bank app; however, since it was Friday, the bank notified me that the transaction would not be completed until the following Monday. I decided that I would try to offer a screenshot of the ‘booked’ transaction as proof of payment, and, thankfully, the lab accepted it.

After a few minutes, I spotted a shopfront across the road with what looked like a Star of David on the window. Closer inspection revealed that this was, in fact, a museum: The House of Memory of Jewish Presence in Castelo Branco. For an admission fee of only 1.50 euro each (or a mere 1.5% of the cost of a PCR test), we were able to spend 30 minutes or so in this very new and well-appointed modest museum, which tells the story of the Jewish presence in Castelo Branco. We could have spent another 30 minutes, if we had had the time, but even this brief visit was interesting.

The ground floor of the museum displays ritual objects, including a sefer torah, which are not originally from Castelo, but are designed to give brief insight into Jewish religious life. Alongside this display is an account, and several maps and a model, of the medieval town, showing the Moslem, Jewish and Christian quarters at various stages. By the end of the 14^th Century, there was already a Jewish community and a synagogue there, and, after the decree of expulsion in 1496/7, the city was a centre of anusim (secret Jews) and New Christians.

Over the following three centuries, the Portuguese Inquisition instigated some 400 ‘processes’ against Albicastrenses (as Castelo Brancans were known). including 21 in which the victims died. In the museum, the path to the staircase passes through a small darkened passageway, with illuminated windows showing contemporary illustrations of instruments of torture being used.

The staircase leads to a floor dedicated to six prominent Jewish Albicastrenses. One of these is Amato Lusitano, a name adopted by Joao Rodrigues.

Born in 1511, Lusitano was a descendant of a family of anusim called Chabib. (Amato is the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew Chabib – beloved. Lusitania is the classical name for the area now occupied by Portugal.) Brought up as a Jew, he graduated with honours as an M.D. from the University of Salamanca in Spain, but was then unable to return to Portugal, where his family were known, for fear of the Inquisition. Prefiguring the ideal of a European Union, like so many of his contemporary academics, he then spent time in Antwerp, the Netherlands and France, before settling in Italy.

His reputation as a physician was such that, while in Venice, he treated the Pope’s niece. During six years in Ferrara, he lectured in anatomy, on one occasion famously dissecting twelve cadavers (a cutting-edge technique), and also discovered, and demonstrated, the nature of venous valves.

At the time, it was believed that both veins and arteries carried blood from the heart: the fact that the network of blood vessels grew thinner as they got further from the heart seemed to support this; in addition, the network of capillaries that connect the veins to the arteries was too small to be detected by the naked eye, and its discovery had to wait for the invention of the microscope. Unaware of that connection, anatomists could only conclude that blood was fed to the arteries from the heart, as well as to the veins.

In his demonstration in Ferrara, Lusitano blew air into the lower part of the azygos vein, and showed that the vena cava would not be inflated. If the air was not able to pass into the vena cava, then it was all the more certain that blood, much thicker than air, could not flow through.

I was also encouraged to see, at the museum, a poster advertising a book launch and talk organized by the Castelo Branco municipality, to be given by a prominent historian who has devoted the last decade or more to researching the story of Jewish life in Castelo Branco.

After this unexpected break, we returned to the Red Cross. Eventually, and totally unapologetically, the test administrator arrived at 11:20. (I wonder: How much do you have to pay to qualify for an apology?) We spent a frustrating 15 minutes while she wrestled with a computer terminal, rather unconvincingly entering all of the information we had already given by email. She then swept us upstairs to a room where she administered the test.

Editor’s Note: Readers of a sensitive nature may wish to look away for the following paragraph.

By the time we flew on Thursday, we had both recovered full use of our noses, and so we were able to enjoy the smooth flight.

Oh, by the way! I know many of you are anxious to know what happened with the wood-burning stove I wrote about last week. Paolo (he of the leather homburg) phoned on Wednesday to say that he could not, after all, install it that day, but would come on Thursday.

We look forward to feeling the glow in mid-January, when we are due to return to Portugal. Mind you, there’s a certain smile that’s guaranteed to generate as much warmth as an 11.4 kilowatt stove.