History of the Jews in Madeira

The history of the Jews in Madeira spans the entire length of the history of Madeira itself, from Crypto-Jews to World War II evacuees. Like the Jews of mainland Portugal, Madeira jews are mainly related to Sephardi history, a Jewish ethnic division that represents communities who have originated in the Iberian Peninsula.

Manoel Dias Soeiro  better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (מנשה בן ישראל‎), was born in Madeira in 1604.

Menasseh was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writer, diplomat, printer, publisher, and founder of the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626.

In 1819, Jews from Morocco arrived to Madeira and set themselves up in the cloth and wine trades.

The Synagogue of Funchal, called Shaar Hashamain, located at 33 Rua do Carmo, Funchal, is no longer in use and is the only known synagogue that has ever existed in Madeira. The construction period was around 1836, believed to be updated around 1914 by architect Miguel Ventura Terra, as he designed the Lisbon Synagogue around the same time.

The Abudarham family from Gibraltar were involved in the Madeira wine industry from the early 1860s onwards. Rabbi David Zaguri became its spiritual leader in 1857.

Another period of immigration followed in the 20th century, with the arrival of refugees from the First and Second World Wars. The Jewish community also grew due to the Evacuation of the Gibraltarian civilian population during World War II to Madeira. Tito Benady, a historian on Gibraltar Jewry, noted that when some 200 Jews of the 2000 evacuees from Gibraltar were evacuated as non combatants to Funchal, at the start of World War II, they found a Jewish cemetery that belonged to the Abudarham family, the same family after whom the Abudarham Synagogue in Gibraltar was named. Some of these evacuees were buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Funchal, a burial ground that was built in 1851. The Jewish Cemetery of Funchal is located in Rua do Lazareto, Funchal. Sephardi Jews as well as Ashkenazi Jews are buried there. Thirty-eight graves in total. The last burial took place in 1976.

In 2013, Passover Seder was held in Madeira sponsored by Shavei Israel and was attended by Bnei Anousim or Crypto-jews.

Was Madeira’s Pioneer, João G. Zarco, Jewish?

There are discussions as to whether João Gonçalves Zarco, the Portuguese explorer who established settlements and recognition of the Madeira Islands, could have been of Jewish Converso origin. It is believed that Zarco was of a prominent Jewish family from Santarém and Lisbon.

Mossé Zarco was King João II's tailor. There was also a Portuguese doctor named Joseph Zarco, whom some authors claim to be Joseph Ibn Sharga, the great kabbalist, and a sixteenth-century poet named Yehuda Zarco. Authors known for making the claim that João Gonçalves Zarco was of Jewish ancestry are Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto and Manuel Luciano da Silva, who also suggest that Christopher Columbus could have been of Jewish descent from Portugal and his real name was Salvador Fernandes Zarco. Isabel Violante Pereira also attributes Jewish ancestry to João Gonçalves Zarco.