April 19: Pogrom in Portugal

A three-day anti-Jewish massacre began in Lisbon, Portugal on this date in 1506. It would take the lives of more than 1,000 Jews. The city was wracked with drought-driven hunger and fearful of the plague; when a converso (New Christian) questioned the validity of a religious miracle involving a statue at St. Dominic’s Church, he was torn to pieces and the rioting began. In 1988, Portugal’s socialist President Mario Soares apologized for the expulsion of 1496, the Inquisition, and other persecutions of Portuguese Jews. Approximately 1,000 people who identify as Jews live in the country today.

“I enter this house, but I do not adore sticks or stones, only the God of Israel.” -Converso oath, muttered when entering a church