ALJP — Association for the Portuguese-Jewish Connection
Connecting the Portuguese-Jewish Identity
The Ligação Judaica por Portugal association works to preserve, research, and strengthen Portuguese-Jewish heritage through the lens of the Spanish and Portuguese expulsion. We bridge a proud past with a living identity today, promoting historical, cultural, and legal knowledge and connecting communities across generations.
Photo Gallery
Timeline
-
Early Middle Ages
Jewish communities in Iberia matured within plural societies: cities such as Toledo, Cordoba and Lisbon hosted legal debate, commerce and literature—layers that still echo in scholarship today.
-
Late medieval pressures
Alongside cultural flowering came vulnerability: shifting royal policy and popular unrest episodically shattered the protections minorities relied on.
-
Turn of the 15th century
Regional crises and rhetoric turned violent for many Jewish quarters in Spain—a prelude to definitive policy choices that reshaped Iberian Judaism.
-
1492 — Expulsion from Spain
Edicts forced departure or outward conversion. Large streams moved toward Italy, North Africa, the Ottoman world and beyond—redrawing where Sephardic life would rebuild.
-
1497 — Portugal and mass baptism
Portuguese policy pressed integration through baptism in ways that left complex legacies: communities navigated secrecy, survival strategies and lasting questions of identity.
-
Anusim routes & diaspora
Families carried practices, names and memories across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. What scholarship often calls crypto-Judaism reflects lived ambiguity rather than a single uniform story.
-
Modernity & citizenship
Enlightenment ideas and nation-states reframed minority rights; Iberian-descended Jews intersected with wider Jewish movements—including modern Zionism—alongside local civic struggles.
-
Today — law & remembrance
Portuguese nationality legislation regarding Sephardic descent is educational reading here; personal applications require verified documentation and advice from qualified professionals.