Capt. Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (aka Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh) was a courageous figure who stood up for the Jewish people, defying the powers that be to help his brethren. Barros Basto became known as the "Apostle of the Marranos," the title of a short biography by noted historian Cecil Roth who met Basto in 1930 and described him as the most charismatic man that he had ever met.
Barros Basto was born in the Portuguese city of Amarante on December 1887, and was given a Catholic education. He, however, came from a family of Bnei Anusim (whom historians refer to by the derogatory term “Marranos” or Conversos), descendants of Jews whose ancestors had been forced to convert to Catholicism in the 15th century. When he was nine years old his grandfather told him they were descendants of Jews forcibly converted in 1497 and that he wished to die as a Jew.
In 1497 the Sephardic Jews of Portugal were all ordered to be baptized by the King who promised the ‘New Christians” that there would be no inquiry into their private religious practices for 20 years (later extended). Secretly observing the essential rituals of Judaism, the New Christians maintained their Marrano (secret Jew, in Hebrew, “anousim”, for “forced ones”) identity for over 300 years despite relentless persecution by the Inquisition. Thousands were tortured and/or burned alive. The national archives of Portugal, “Torre de Tombo” contains over 40,000 Inquisition files.
Raised by his mother in Porto, he attended the Portuguese Military Academy and was one of those who hoisted the Republican flag over the city of Oporto on October 5th, 1910 declaring the founding of the Portuguese Republic.The 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established but overturned in a military coup d'état in 1926, and then superseded by the "Estado Novo" authoritarian regime under António de Oliveira Salazar in 1933.
He went on to become a decorated soldier who commanded a Portuguese infantry company as lieutenant on the Western front in World War I, where he fought in the trenches of Flanders, survived gas attacks, and took part in the allied offensive to liberate Belgium. There he apparently met a French rabbi who is believed to have influenced him.
Upon his return to Portugal from the war, Barros Basto decided to re-embrace the faith of his forefathers. He studied Judaism intensively and taught himself Hebrew, becoming so proficient that he later taught it at the faculty of Arts at the University of Porto where he also conducted original research into Portuguese medieval Jewish history.
Rebuffed by the Jewish community of Lisbon, he traveled to Tangiers in Spanish Morocco in December 1920 to undergo a formal return to the Jewish people before a rabbinical court, adopting the name of Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh.
Returning to Lisbon, he married the daughter of a prominent Jewish family of that community which initially had rejected him. He then settled down in Porto (see picture above), near Amarante, his place of birth, to raise a family and start his building his dream. Barros Basto established a Jewish community in Porto in 1923. After the discovery of crypto-Jewish descendants in the Tras-os-Montes and Beiras regions, Barros Basto initiated a proselytic movement with the aim of bringing back to normative Judaism the whole remnant flock of those who, while they lost some of the essential content of Judaism, remained Jews in spirit, despite the inexorable repression of the Inquisition.
"Adonai (God) is with me and I will not fear" was his motto, and he was not afraid to canvas the interior of Portugal to make surveys, the contacts, to defend the Jewish identity of the Crypto-Jews at the same time having the goal of returning them to modern Judaism. Donning his military uniform and medals, he traveled among the isolated towns and villages of Portugal’s interior, sometime by foot and donkey, the charismatic Captain gave rousing speeches, conducted Jewish services and sought to inspire others to follow his example. After centuries of hiding, thousands of Bnei Anusim answered his call to give up their double identities and return openly to the faith of their ancestors.
He led the revival of normative rituals and established synagogues in several towns and cities, despite protests from the Catholic Church, and at its peak, the movement may have had 10,000 adherents. He tried to recruit a rabbi, he conducted historical research, he organized conferences, and he resisted attacks by the Catholic Church and a fascist state and their accomplices.
It was the "Obra do Resgate", a movement of redemption, which excited Jewish communities all over the world and triggered a strong chain of support from Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam, New York, and London (whose ancestors had escaped the clutches of the Inquisition). The London Marranos Committee and the Spanish Portuguese congregation of Bevis Marks, England’s oldest synagogue, provided moral and financial support. Prominent English Jews such as journalist and founder of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Lucien Wolf, Cambridge professor and respected author, Cecil Roth and lawyer Paul Goodman (also president of the London Marranos Committee), became friends and fans. Dr. Rabbi David Sola Pool of New York visited Basto.
In Porto, a city with a strong mercantile Jewish tradition (birthplace of the world’s first secular Jew, Uriel da Costa, Spinoza’s predecessor) Barros Basto established "Rosh Pinah", described by him as a "theological seminary," the first Jewish school in 500 years. The seminary operated for nine years, and dozens of young Bnei Anusim learned there about Jewish life and lore.
He single-handedly produced an instructional Jewish newspaper, Halapid (the Torch), which he published until 1958. The newspaper was aimed at rallying anusim and to help them learn about the religion of their ancestors. He was also responsible for the publication of numerous books on Jewish history and law in Portuguese.
In London the Committee of Portuguese Marranos was created, and raised £10,000 for the construction of a community centre with a synagogue and a reading room, and to hire a resident rabbi. Basto had been recommended in 1926 by Lucien Wolf of the London Marranos Committee to be the recipient of funds to establish a Jewish school and lead the return of thousands of descendants of Jews forcibly baptized in 1497.
At the height of the depression, Barros Basto built a magnificent four-storey art deco synagogue at one of the best addresses in the bustling port city of Porto, which he called the “Cathedral of the North”, a beacon for the downtrodden Marranos. The land was purchased by Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris and the building donated by Lawrence Kadoorie of Hong Kong. The Kadoorie synagogue of Porto (Mekor Haim, Hebrew for “font of life) took nine years to build (1929 –1938) and was inaugurated in 1938, the same year as Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass” when synagogues and Jewish businesses were ransacked and destroyed throughout Germany.
Paul Goodman, friend, and president of the Portuguese Marranos Committee attended; so did Moses Amazalak, president of the Lisbon Israeli community. Rabbi David de Sola Pool of New York was an avid supporter and a room in the synagogue is named after him.
But his open identification with Judaism, and the thousands of people whom he touched, was all too much for Portugal’s staunch Catholic neo-fascist state, Salazar’s “Estado Novo” (New State). They sought to quell his nascent movement by bringing him up on charges connected to the practice of the Jewish religion. Relying on “anonymous” complaints and internal intrigue, Salazar’s dictatorship engineered the Captain’s downfall.
A local priest fabricated charges of homosexual and indecent acts, such as sucking the infants´ blood during circumcisions. Although Barros Basto was cleared by civil and military authorities of trumped up charges, the military council declared that Barros Basto had “performed the operation of circumcision of several students pursuant to a precept of the Israelite religion he professes” and said that he was excessively affectionate toward his pupils. On June 12, 1937, the Superior Disciplinary Council of the Portuguese Army concluded that Barros Basto lacked the “moral capacity” to serve in its ranks and stripped him of his military commission, prohibiting him from wearing his uniform.
As a result, they summarily drummed him out of the armed forces, destroyed his career and sullied his name. He was even accused of being a Communist. This brought about an end to his efforts to reawaken Portugal’s Bnei Anusim, many of whom saw the treatment meted out to Barros Basto as a sign that the authorities would not tolerate their return to Judaism. The very people he had championed shunned him. The inquisition had not disappeared, it simply had adapted. Marranos once again withdrew into the world of secrecy.
During the ensuing war, Barros Basto took an active part in the rescue of his brethren in faith who fled from the Nazis. He made the Porto community a shelter for the refugee families fleeing the holocaust, some of whom have been redeemed, have started a new life, and are still there to testify.
Barros Basto died in 1961, almost blind, a disappointed and broken man. Following his death in 1961, he was buried in a simple and unadorned grave, not in a Jewish cemetery (there is none in Porto and he did not want to be buried in Lisbon), but in Amarante, his place of birth, near Porto.
Following Portugal’s peaceful carnation revolution of 1974, which toppled Europe’s longest dictatorship, Basto’s family sought to clear his name. Despite promises to do so, the military and politicians continue to stonewall all efforts to rehabilitate the Captain.
Today, there are about 1,000 Jews in Portugal, of whom 600 live in the Lisbon area, 180 in Belmonte and 120 within two hours of Porto. Those of Jewish descent who are pursuing their roots in one way or another would add modestly to the numbers. The magnificent synagogue that Basto had built, fell into disrepair, its imposing doors closed to the curious. He seemed to have failed.
With the renaissance of Marrano identity, and the re-birth of the “Cathedral of the North”, the Captain is once again a hero. On September 8 2005, the impressive Kadoorie synagogue (Mekor H’aim-fountain of life) in Porto, Portugal came alive with singing and dancing on the occasion of the dedication of a Sefer Torah donated by a rabbi whose grandfather was saved from the Nazis by the then fledging anusim community founded by Captain Barros Basto. In January 2007 a mikve presented by the Abecassis family, was formally inaugurated in Porto in the presence of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and the Israel ambassador to Portugal.
The Kadoorie Synagogue is set in a large garden dominated by towering palms, it is a square stone building with an entrance made up of a series of arches. The grand interior, under a large cupola, is marked by azulejos - the tiles for which Portugal is famous. Blue tiles line the side walls, and the eastern wall features gold tiles in arabesque patterns above an Ark with wooden doors. Just above the Ark is a large Star of David. Given the small size of the community (only about 35 Jews live in Porto), there is rarely a minyan, but the synagogue often hosts classes from the area's schools.
The doors of the “cathedral” of the north are once again thrown open, welcoming a new wave of anousim who had dreamed of entering those doors for years; and come they did, philosophers, doctors, poets, professors, professionals, artists and youth. Some are religious, others are secular, but all are curious and excited about their new journey of discovery and learning. Together, with the understanding of a sympathetic orthodox rabbi, Elisha Salas, provided by Amishav, an Israeli organization, they are embarking on the experience of a lifetime; Hebrew, Torah and Talmudic studies, as well as services at the synagogue.
The Mekor Haim Synagogue symbolizes the hope for a renaissance of Judaism in Portugal, where some believe millions of people may have Jewish ancestry. "The potential is enormous. Enormous," says the synagogue´s president, Moshe Medina. The synagogue also is home to a historic past.
"As far as I´m concerned, 4 million Portuguese today have Jewish blood," said Medina, the community´s Israeli-born leader. His calculation is based on Portugal´s religious makeup before 1496, when King Manoel I — under pressure from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain — ordered all Jews in the kingdom to become "New Christians." At the time, after a wave of refugees fled the Inquisition in Spain, between one-fifth and one-third of Portugal´s 1 million people were estimated to be Jewish. Today 10 million people live in Portugal. And many of the New Christians who continued to practice Judaism — the crypto-Jews — settled in villages in the remote regions of northern Portugal around Porto.
Ethnographers say there are or may be pockets of crypto-Jews in villages in northern Portugal. The difficulty in tracing them comes from an identity confusion that is rooted in a centuries-old strategy designed to throw off inquisitive Christians. "One day they tell you they´re Jewish, the next they say they´re Christian," said Elvira Mea, a history professor at the Universidade do Porto.
For his part, Medina doesn´t want to guess how many crypto-Jews there are or how many might return to Judaism. But his eyes widen as he talks about the "many families, many families" he expects to fill the carved wooden benches of Mekor Haim. Estrela Oliveira and her sons Simao, 12, and Carlos, 13, are among those already attending. "My grandmother always told me that we were Jewish," Oliveira said after the service. "But we had to hide it." A 49-year-old philosophy professor, Oliveira grew up secretly lighting candles on Sabbath. Her Jewish conviction was only strengthened when her parents sent her to a school run by nuns. "When I would ask why the nuns wouldn´t give me an answer. They would just say: ‘If you don´t believe without asking questions, then you don´t have faith,´ " she said. Oliveira´s surname means "olive tree." When Jews converted, many adopted names from nature, a kind of code that allowed them to identify each other. "Pear tree" is the translation of Carlos Pereira´s last name.
After leading the service with Moshe Medina´s brother Marcos, Pereira, 76, recalled how his parents resisted the blandishments of the local priest by saying he´d been baptized at the hospital. "But there was a well-known Jew in the neighborhood who was a barber, who also shaved beards and pulled teeth," said the retired engineer. "He was the one who circumcised me."
The president of Amishav, an organization that assists lost tribes and hidden Jewish communities to return to the Jewish people, Michael Freund, said the outreach effort goes hand in hand with the campaign his organization is spearheading to rehabilitate Barros Basto posthumously. Amishav´s campaign so far has led to letters to the Portuguese ambassador in Washington from the Orthodox Union, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Religious Zionists of America, the Jewish War Veterans of America and Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.). In Lisbon, a Defense Ministry source said the requests are being studied, and a "positive result" is expected.
On October 31, 2011, the captain’s granddaughter, Isabel Maria de Barros Lopes, with the help of an attorney, submitted a formal request to the president of the Portuguese parliament seeking her grandfather’s posthumous reinstatement into the military. Isabel is determined to see things through. Just like her grandfather, she is not afraid to fight for what is right.
Michael Freund chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org) requests help in putting more pressure to bear on Portuguese officials. Contact your local Portuguese embassy or sign the petition to the leader of the Portuguese parliament online at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/pardon-Capt-Barros-Basto/.
Further Reading:
Asser Levy: The first fighter against hatred in the North American colonies
Remembering Ze’ev Jabotinsky and His Words on the Fight against Hatred
