Portugal

Jews have called Portugal home since at least the time of the Roman Empire. More than 1,500 years later, JDC stepped in, helping to provide safe harbor for those escaping the Holocaust. 

Until the 15th century, Jews played a prominent role in Portugal’s political and economic life. Yet it was only after 1492, when they were expelled from Spain, that Portugal’s Jewish population expanded significantly. More than 100,000 Spanish Jews found refuge there, but in 1497, under pressure from Spain, King Manuel of Portugal decreed that Jews would be prevented from leaving the country and had to convert to Christianity.

Brutal times followed for Portugal’s Jews. Just a few decades later, the Portuguese Inquisition began, and the crown’s main target was conversos — Jews who had converted to Christianity, but who were suspected of secretly maintaining their traditions. Punishment included, but was not limited to, forced labor, flogging, exile, and/or death by fire or garrote. This barbarity lasted nearly 300 years. 

During World War II, however, Portugal once again became a haven for Jews — and JDC played a crucial role in securing their welfare and safe passage out of Europe. 

After the Anschluss and Kristallnacht, German and Austrian Jews tried to flee Nazi-occupied Europe, but immigration restrictions stymied their efforts. Most refugees had their sights set on Lisbon, where the majority of Portugal’s 2,000 Jews lived. Lisbon served as the one remaining port on the continent from which refugees could get a boat to New York, the Caribbean, Latin America, or elsewhere.

Jewish refugees reached the city through torturous paths, arriving destitute and forlorn — a frightening odyssey from impending doom to a frustrating purgatory. Underground railroads ensured they could make the difficult journey, and JDC helped subsidize trainloads of Jews out of Germany. Most refugees came via Spain from Germany, Austria, and Poland, and many arrived penniless. 

Refugee life could be brutal. Ship tickets cost at least $8,750 USD (in today’s money), and even more on the black market. If refugees couldn’t purchase their tickets in time, their visas would expire, and they would have to start the process all over again. 

In the middle of this bureaucratic morass, JDC offered logistical support, as well as food, shelter, clothing, and medical care to Jewish refugees. In June 1940, JDC’s European headquarters in Paris closed as the Nazis advanced, and Lisbon became our new center of operations.

From that wartime headquarters in Lisbon, JDC bought blocks of space on transatlantic vessels for thousands of emigrants fleeing Europe, maintained refugees in transit and those remaining in Portugal, and supported refugees without valid visas detained by the government. All told, from 1941 to 1942, JDC helped secure safe passage for roughly 13,000 Jews seeking a better life abroad. 

Today, JDC builds bridges between Portugal’s Jews and the greater Jewish world. At the start of the Ukraine crisis, this included support for refugee integration into the community. In addition, Portuguese Jews are regularly invited to join regional seminars, leadership summits, and global gatherings, like the 2024 Stronger Together conference in Israel. And through programs like JDC’s Buncher Community Leadership Program and Junction — the JDC pan-European initiative that empowers rising Jewish changemakers to shape European Jewish life — JDC invests in strengthening Jewish Portugal, helping them take charge of their collective future.