ÉVORA

ÉVORA, capital of Alto Alentejo province, S. central Portugal. It had one of the most important Jewish communities in the country. Regulations defining the powers of the arraby moor issued during the reign of King Alfonso III (1248–79) laid down that the chief rabbi of the Jewish communities in Alentejo (Alemtejo) should reside in Évora. In 1360, 1388, and 1434, the Évora community was given privileges by the king defining the limits of its autonomy. In 1325 the Jews of Évora were compelled by a special decree to wear a yellow shield of David on their hats (see jewish badge ). On several occasions the kings of Portugal intervened in favor of the Jews of Évora who engaged in varied economic activities. In 1392 John I ordered the town authorities to desist from further confiscation of Jewish property in the synagogues of Évora, and in 1408 he granted the Jews a privilege permitting them to enlarge their quarter. The old Jewish quarter can still be visited. On the doorposts of stone-made houses three slots for mezzuzot were found. In 1478 the community paid a sum of 264,430 cruzados to the crown. After the decree of expulsion and forced conversions of 1496/7, Évora continued to be an important center of anusim . In April 1505 these were set upon by bands of rioters, who manhandled them and set the synagogue on fire. From 1542, the year in which luis dias of Setúbal was burned at the stake there, a tribunal of the Inquisition was active in Évora. Numerous anusim were condemned to the stake from the 16th to 18th centuries. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Kayserling, Geschichte der Juden in Portugal (1867), index; J. Mendes dos Remedios, Os Judeus em Portugal, 1 (1895), 226, 362, 382; L. Wolf, Reports on the Marranos or Crypto-Jews of Portugal (1926), 6–7; N. Slouschz, Ha-Anusim be-Portugal (1932), 10–12, 16, 21, 24, 69; B. Roth, in: REJ, 126 (1957), 94–95; Roth, Marranos, index; J. dos Santos Ramalho Coelho, in: A Cidade de Évora, 63/64 (1980/81), 267–84; M.J.P. Ferro Tavares, in: Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 17 (1987), 551–58; A.B. Coelho, Inquisicío de Évora dos promórdios a 1668, 2 vols. (1987); M. do Carmo Teixeira and L.M.L. Ferreira Runa, in: Revista de História Económica e Social, 22 (1988), 51–76; L.M.L. Ferreira Runa, in: Arqueologia do estado, vol. 1 (1988), 375–86; M.B.A. Araújo, in: Inquisicío, vol. 1 (1989–90), 49–72.