Portugal to mark 500-year anniversary of massacre of Jews

Portugal to mark 500-year anniversary of massacre of Jews By Levi Fernandes:

Portugal will on Wednesday mark the 500-year anniversary of the start of a massacre which saw thousands of Jews burned at the stake in the streets of Lisbon at the hands of zealous Roman Catholics [xians].

City officials will unveil a small memorial at the site of one of the main stakes used during the three-day killing spree while in the evening Lisbon’s main Square, Rossio, will be lit up with 4,000 candles in memory of the dead.

One of the organizers of the candlelight memorial, journalist Nuno Guerreiro Josue, said he hopes the event will help ensure that one of Portugal's darkest, but still largely unknown, moments in history is not forgotten.

"It is important to remember the three days that 500 years ago filled the streets of Lisbon with [Jewish] blood," he said in a statement posted on his website.

Historians estimate that between 2,000 and 4,000 "New Christians" -- Jews who were forced by the state to convert in 1496 -- were thrown into pyres set up across the city centre before authorities regained control of the Portuguese capital.

The violence erupted on April 19, 1506 after a man believed to be a "New Christian" suggested that a light emanating from a crucifix at a chapel was likely caused by natural causes instead of divine intervention as thought by many Christians.

He was dragged from the church by a group of women who beat him to death, according to several historical accounts.

A priest then made a fiery sermon against "New Christians" while two other priests, crucifix in hand, marched through the cobblestoned streets of Lisbon inciting people to kill them.

In the ensuing violence even Catholics who were thought to look like "New Chistians" were killed or saw their homes destroyed.

King Manuel, who was outside of the Portuguese capital when the massacre began, ordered the ringleaders rounded up and hung while those convicted of murder or pillage received various corporal punishments.

The massacre highlights the growing unease in Portugal at the time with "New Christians".

Spain had launched its Inquisition in 1492 which aimed to expel or forcibly convert to Christianity all Jews and other non-believers, prompting thousands to cross the border into Portugal where they sought shelter.

But nearly five decades later Portugal launched its own Inquisition which led hundreds of Jews to be tortured or burned at the stake in the 16th and early 17th century after being accused by church tribunals of being heretics.

The forced conversion of Jews together with the Inquisition drastically reduced the number of Jews in Portugal, leading the memory of the "Lisbon massacre" as it has come to be known to fade.

"Since Jewish culture practically disappeared from the country, there was no one to evoke the memory of the massacre," author Richard Zimmler, who has written novels set against the purge of Jews in Portugal, said in an interview published in daily newspaper Publico on Sunday.

Some historians estimate that 20 percent of Portugal's population, or 200,000 people at that time, before the start of the Inquisition were Jewish.

Many were successful traders and scientists whose international visibility made the term "Portuguese" be synonymous with "Jew" at the time.

Today there are just some 3,000 Jews in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million people. Most are concentrated in Lisbon and the majority came to the country after Portugal's Inquisition was officially abolished in 1821.