Belmonte is a unique case in European Jewish history: a community which, after the forced conversion of 1496, kept Jewish practices and prayers in secret for five centuries, handed down from generation to generation, above all by the women.
Sites to visit
The public return to Judaism only took place at the end of the 20th century, with the founding of the community and the inauguration of the Bet Eliahu Synagogue in 1996. The Jewish Museum of Belmonte, the first of its kind in Portugal, documents this history of resistance and continuity.
The guided visit covers the old Jewish quarter, the synagogue and the museum, with the historical context of the crypto-Jewish experience and its significance in Sephardic memory.