All Azores Jewish cemeteries are inactive. "This group of nine islands
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was discovered in the 15th century
by Portuguese navigators and colonized during the reign of Prince Henry
the Navigator." Source with map: http://home.pacifier.com/~kcardoz/maps.html - link no longer available
Some contend that Jews came to the islands in the late
15th century, but the first documented Jewish settlement dates from
1818. Terceira and Sao Miguel each had a Jewish community with members
from Portugal, Morocco and perhaps Spain and Gibraltar, most engaged in
commerce and shipping. The 1848 Jewish population was 250 with the most
important Jewish community was in Ponta Delgada.
During World War II, Ashkenazi Jews from Germany and
Poland fled Europe by way of the Iberian Peninsula to settle in the
Azores, but left following the war. The native Sephardic population
declined through emigration, death, and intermarriage. [April 2002]
http://www.saudades.org/cverde.htm [April 2002] http://www.isjm.org/Links/azores.htm [April 2002] http://www.theazores.net available in English and Portuguese [October 2005]
THE CEMETERIES
CIDADE DA HORTA: FAIAL (FAYAL) Island
See Freedman, Warren. World Guide for the Jewish Traveler. NY: E.P. Dutton Inc, 1984.
See names listed: Abecassis, Jose Maria. Genealogia Hebraica. Lisbon: __, 1991.
Cidade da Horta Cemetery: 1852-? 17 graves in inactive cemetery are listed in Gradwohl, David Mayer. Benditcha Sea Vuestra Memoria: Sephardic Jewish Cemeteries in the Caribbean and Eastern North America (29 pages). 1852-?. Cemetery dates from 1852. 17 graves. See names listed in Jose Maria Abecassis' Genealogia Hebraica. Lisbon, 1991. [updated April 2002]
FLORES ISLAND:
58 sq mi (150 sq km) in Horta
district, the most westerly of the Azores, Portugal. 1991 population:
4,435. Santa Cruz is the chief town. Cattle raising is the main
industry.
Vila de Santa Cruz, Lugar da Barra: near Forte de Santa Catarina, Graciosa Island. Cemetery began before 1832. [Source?]
PONTA DELGADA: SAO MIGUEL Island
In Ponta Delgada, Santa Cruz county; Shahak Hasamain Synagogue
(1893- ), a 16th [?] century building downtown, remains, but in
disrepair
Campo da Igualdade (Field of Equality) or Angra do Heroismo: In 1936, the cemetery had 133 graves of which 105 names are listed in: Gradwohl, David Mayer. Vuestra Memoria: Sephardic Jewish Cemeteries in the Caribbean and Eastern North America [or in Jose Maria Abecassis' Genealogia Hebraica. (Lisbon 1991)]
Mentioned in Freedman, Warren. World Guide for the Jewish Traveler. NY: E.P. Dutton Inc, 1984. "The
cemetery is at the present time surrounded by factory buildings and
shut out from sight by a wall. The monuments are situated horizontally.
It suffers from neglect. Crosses mark some of the graves, a well-known
island practice, which purported to serve to keep anti-Jewish rhetoric
muted." Source: http://www.isjm.org/Links/azores.htm [October 2000]
"It all ends with me" Frommer, Myrna Katz. "Letter from
the Azores", Forward, January 9 1998: "I am the last Jew in all of the
Azores," Jorge Delmar says... of Sao Miguel, the largest of the nine
islands that comprises the Portuguese archipelago.
"Thirty years ago, there were 16 Jewish families on this
island," he adds. "We were a community. We had services in the old
synagogue and made all the festivities in my grandfather's house. But
all the others have died or converted or moved away. I am the only one
left." ... Mr Delmar's connection to the Azores began in 1818, when the
Bensaude family of Morocco came to this volcanic outcropping,
mythologized in lore as the remnants of the lost continent of Atlantis.
... Jewish communities emerged throughout the islands. At one time
there were five synagogues on Sao Miguel of Terceira and Fayal. Only
one of the synagogues still remains: Shahak Hasamain, consecrated in
1893 in a 16th century building on a busy downtown street in Ponta
Delgada. …One group of Azorean-Americans still maintains its emporium
on the island of Flores. Every year, a number of people travel to
Flores, perform the rituals and partake of the festival. Afterwards,
they clean up, close the doors to their little temple, and return to
America. ... today the only evidence of a Jewish presence in the Azores
is a couple of cemeteries and a deteriorating synagogue which Jorge
Delmar, for the past 20 years, has struggled to preserve. He has been
writing letters, meeting with government officials and trying to raise
200,000 dollars to restore the deteriorating structure.
"Its easy to be a Jew any place now," says the last Jew
in the Azores. "But here we are soon to be no more. This synagogue
should remain as a reminder that once we were here... I feel I have to
do some thing. It all ends with me.".
Source: http://www.saudades.org/delmer.html [April 2002]
TERCEIRA Island: http://www.isjm.org/Links/azores.htm:
"Salom Delmar, who took care of the synagogue and cemetery until he
passed away in 1990, and now his son, Jorge Delmar, sustains the memory
of the community as best he can. "Thirty years ago, there were 16
Jewish families on this island," Delmar told Myrna Katz Frommer in
1998. "We were a community. We had services in the old synagogue and
made all the festivities in my grandfather's house. But all the others
have died or converted or moved away. I am the only one left." Encyclopaedia Judaica, v.3, p.1013
Weisbrot, Charlotte. "Time seems to stand still in Azores synagogue". Canadian Jewish News, 10/2/1986
Myrna Katz Frommer, "Letter from the Azores", Forward, January 9, 1998
Dias, Fatima. "The Jewish Community in the Azores from 1820 to the Present" in From Iberia to Diaspora: Studies in Sephardic History and Culture, Ed. Yedida K. Stillman and Norman A. Stillman. Leiden, Boston, Koln: Brill, 1999]" [October 2000]
Revised Tuesday, November 15, 2005 01:53:05
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