Porto: a film about the kidnapping of 2,000 Jewish children (1536)

The Porto community makes a film about the Inquisition of Jews in Portugal

Written by Hannah Levy Julian

The Jewish community of Porto unveiled its latest project to mark the anniversary of the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition, at a ceremony attended by about a thousand Portuguese schoolchildren.

Community representatives announced they were producing the film “2000 exiled Jewish children” Scheduled to premiere in late 2024 which will tell the largely unknown story of how 2,000 Jewish children in Portugal up to the age of eight were isolated from their families by King D. João II, King of Portugal, in 1493 and exiled them to the African island of São. Tommy, 7,500 km away.

A year after their deportation to the islands, only 600 children survived the conditions and wild animals.

“This dark episode shows the lengths many have gone to try to defeat and destroy our people.” said Michael Rothwell, director of the Jewish Museum in Porto, which hosted the event.

“We are once again living in dark times as the Jewish people are under attack all over the world. This is why education is so important, especially among young school children. They need to learn tolerance and acceptance, as well as how to recognize and combat anti-Semitism, because this is a sad but real part of our history here in Portugal and across Europe.

The event occurred on May 23, the exact date for the start of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536.

The schoolchildren visited the Jewish Museum of Porto and the Holocaust Museum to teach them about the history of Jews in Portugal and the anti-Semitism they suffered from. This event is part of the community's strategy to combat anti-Semitism in Portugal by organizing regular school visits to the synagogue and creating teacher courses, historical films and charitable missions in partnership with the Catholic Diocese of Porto.

On April 19, the community released the short film for free “1506 – Genocide in Lisbon”, which has already received more than two million views in its various languages, aims to show that the Holocaust was not an isolated event, but rather that the Jews were victims of terrible massacres. and massacres and genocides throughout the diaspora, especially in Europe and Eurasia.

“Children today are more responsive to visual media. It is therefore necessary to create tools that describe with historical accuracy the pain and suffering that Jews experienced in the past, so that they can recognize it in the present.” said Gabriel Cendrović, president of the association. Jewish community in Porto.

“We have found these children to be very receptive to these films, which is why we are now releasing our latest film showing one of the most brutal and saddest chapters in Jewish history.

“It is important to show the current context of anti-Semitism as a continuation of what came before. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun, and even today, Jewish children are being hunted down and kidnapped, as we saw in southern Israel on October 7. »

The film script benefited from the technical support provided by the Cátedra de Estudos Sefarditas Alberto Benveniste of the University of Lisbon.