Portugal

Jews lived in the Kingdom of Portugal throughout the Middle Ages, sometimes achieving positions of considerable influence. Their numbers increased significantly when, in 1492, Jews were expelled from elsewhere in Iberia, and many settled in Portugal. But their relatively peaceful residence there was quickly interrupted, as Portugal followed Spain’s lead and expelled its Jews in 1497. Many left for Italy, Ottoman lands, and elsewhere, but some went “underground,” preserving their Jewish identities and practices only in private. In the later 16th century, some of these Jews recaptured their Jewish identities, fleeing Iberia for places like Amsterdam and even the “New World” (the Caribbean, North America), where some of they synagogues and homes they then built survive until this day.