Memory and Architectural Preservation of the First Public Synagogue in the Americas
By Renato Athias [*]
Introduction
The[1]relationship between architecture and memory that I will be addressing here, in this conference, is not new, since others have debated before me. Or rather, that the preservation of buildings and their architectural forms is closely related to the memory and tradition of a certain place. This is nothing new. Here I make a parenthesis to note Rudy Koshar’s book entitled “From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870–1990”, which is an example that demonstrates the existence of elements of Memory and the history of synagogues in the patrimonial preservation processes. Therefore, historical elements reappear when it comes to giving visibility to a building that played an important role in colonial Recife under Dutch rule through the West Indies Company (WIC) from 1621 to 1654 in Brazil. But soon after, in 1654, the Kahal Zur Israel synagogue (or Congregation of the Rock of Israel) will pass into oblivion, and will be left to invisibility. The building of the Synagogue ceases to be part of the landscape with different uses until the year 2000 in the city of Recife (Mello, 1988).
So what interests me here, as a case study on experiences of patrimonialization, in this text, is to argue that the Synagogue Kahal Zur Israel, with its architectural design, with explicit objectives in patrimonial preservation, will give way to the current manifestations, Which are very close to those practices carried out in this same building (on the same street where the Kahal Zur Israel is located) about 400 years ago. In other words, the synagogue, being returned to its historical place in contemporary times, thus returning to the landscape of Recife, takes up its original role. I put this central argument here in the organization of this study, as a very specific case, contrary to what Dr. Rudy Koshar argued in his book in relation to the synagogues he pointed out.
Jews, New Christians and Marranos
Due to the religious tolerance of the Calvinists of the West Indies Company (WIC) a significant number of Sephardic Jews came to settle in Recife. The Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue was therefore active only during the time of Dutch domination, in the government of the West Indies Company, on the coast of Pernambuco during the period from 1625 to 1654. The initial formation of the synagogue came about of 180 associates, represented by the parents of the Jewish families residing in Recife, well documented in the Haskamot (Wiznitzer, 1953).
Figura 1: “Porto e Barra de Pernambuco”, from Atlas of Brasil. João Teixeira Albernaz, 1631. (Mapoteca do Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Brasil. Reproduced from HERKENHOFF, 1999, p. 88). 1. Reefs; 2. Bar of entrancy; 3. Port; 4. Isthmus; 5. Franciscan Convent, Housings and Dutch fortification works on the island of Santo Antônio; 6. Recife; 6.1 Stored warehouses; 6.2. Hermitage of the Holy Body (New to the Jews street).
The Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue represented one of the most important landmarks of the Jewish presence in Colonial Brazil. This building was located in the current “Rua do Bom Jesus”, formerly called “Rua dos Judeus”, in the neighbourhood of Recife between 1636 and 1654, being the first official synagogue of the Jews that inhabited the Americas (Weitman 2003). During this period we have information that also worked in this building two schools: the Talmud Torah and Etz Hayim. After the expulsion of the Dutch from Recife, the street became known as Rua da Cruz, and the buildings of the synagogue and religious schools received the number 26. Dr. Tânia Kaufman (2000) will draw attention to the fact that from 1879, the street will adopt the current name of the ‘Rua do Bom Jesus”. Tania Kaufman will also show in his important work that all the events that take place in this specific building will have a direct action related to giving another look at the urban landscape of that specific place, in order to erase the memory of the presence of the Jews in Recife at the colonial period. But in this same work of Tania Kaufman will show the role of this synagogue in the daily life of the Jews in Recife and that with the expulsion of the Dutch from Recife back to Amsterdam, many will stay and will just choose the sertão, the interior of the state of Pernambuco (Kaufman, 2000), to settle in and others family went to the Caribbean and North America as mentioned by Reginaldo Heller (2008). Tania Kaufman also points out that many of the country practices, nowadays, those in dealing with the dead, with the environment, etc., can have an enormous relation with Jewish practices, insisting that these traditions were left by these Jews who come from Recife (Silva 2007, Moura, 2002).
At the beginning of the colonization, far from the “Autos-da-Fé”, the Portuguese (old Christians) interpreted less strictly the severe laws against the Jews present in Portugal. The Jews and New Christians being persecuted by the inquisitors in the famous “Autos-da-Fé”, were not new Christians taking shelter in Lusitanian America, where religious fanaticism was much less expressive, both for the relaxation of customs, and for the need to protect colonization interest. With the Dutch presence the persecutions to the Jews practically did not exist. However, in other places outside of the Dutch Recife, between 1591 and 1618, in Bahia there were two visits of the Court of the Holy Office (Mello 1979). Jews who were not converted to Catholicism had their property confiscated and / or received the death sentence at the stake for treason, heresy, witchcraft, or blood’s impurity. It is important to remember that many Portuguese, who came to Brazil in the early sixteenth century, that is, countless Portuguese Lords, were in fact New Christians or Marranes (Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism but who practiced Judaism in hiding), expelled from Portugal. Despite this relative liberty, however, the Inquisition did not follow a rectilinear movement, always presenting differently than expected. Thus, it never ceased to extend its eyes and claws to the Jews in Brazil, having sent more than 500 people to Portugal (Moura, 2002). Ronaldo Vainfas, in his book “Colonial Jerusalem the Presence of Portuguese Jews in Dutch Brazil” (2011), develops the thesis that the different Calvinist interpretations in conflict in the Netherlands favour tolerance towards the Jews in domains of the Dutch Provinces.
Figura 2: Graphical representation of Recife made by José Luiz da M. Menezes, based on the Map of Cornelius Golijath (1648), indicating the street and original nucleus of Recife in 1630.
José Antonio Gonsalves de Mello (1979), an important historian and specialist in the studies of the Dutch presence in Recife, describes with mastery and shows through documents the main occupations and professions of the new Jews and Christians during the period of the Company of the West Indies in the coast of Pernambuco. The occupations of the newly converted Jewish immigrants were as follows: doctors, lawyers, calligraphers, musicians, goldsmiths, ceramists, official interpreters, translators, mill owners, actors, ship-loaders, black slave buyers, clothes, sugar, food, wine, wood, merchants in general. “Most of them live in Recife and have mastered the entire business movement.” These words are from the report of a senior official of the West Indies Company, the High Councillor Adriaen Van der Dussen, concluded in 1639 when he returned from Brazil to the Netherlands (Breda 2007). This documentation shows the commercial development deployed in Recife by the Jews in the Atlantic and how modern business was being viewed by the old world. Not being able to refuse workers, due to their labour shortages, the new settlers found in the people of Jewish origin, even the favours granted to the others. The great Portuguese authorities Duarte Coelho contracted laborious Jews the assembly and modernized Sugar mills in Pernambuco, where they dedicated themselves to the cultivation of sugarcane and to the production and export trade of sugar. Therefore, we must admit the important influence of Jews and Marranos in the historical and economic formation of Colonial Brazil.
The Jewish presence on the coast of Pernambuco was perceived in Recife, even before the establishment of the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, for there have been reports that the Jews gathered in the synagogue called Maguen Abraham (Shield of Abraham) on the ancient island of Antônio Vaz, Which later came to be called Mauritius, and in that period there was not yet the bridge linking Mauritius to the neighbourhood of Recife. Many were in small congregations in Itamaracá and Paraíba. Unfortunately, to this day it is not known where these synagogues operated (Bloom, 1934, Mello 1976, Wolff, 1979)
The exponents of the Kahal Zur Israel synagogue were the rabbi and first Jewish writer of the Americas, Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and Hazan (singer) Moisés Raphael Aguilar; The elementary school teacher Samuel Frazão, the magarefe of the Jewish ritual abbe Benjamin Levy, shamash Isaac Nahamias and Josef Atias, all these names and others will appear in the books of Haskamot, procedures of the Assembly (Wiznitzer, 1953). The Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was born a new Christian, by virtue of the forced baptism of his parents. To freely profess Judaism, his family immigrated to Amsterdam, where Isaac became a rabbi. He came to Recife in 1642, at the invitation of the Jewish community of Pernambuco, earning a salary of 1,600 florins, accompanied by Hazan (liturgical singer) Moisés Rafael de Aguillar. Before 1636, the Jewish community used the house of David Senior Coronel, in the Rua dos Judeus, as synagogue (Mello 1976).
The Kahal Zur Israel synagogue was in fact seen as the Jewish public space, still within a narrow and “mixed-people” urban context, ie without a specific Jewish “neighborhood” and the local prohibition of public expression of Judaism. The inner space of the synagogue can also be partially reconstituted mainly through the descriptions found in the Haskamot (Wiznitzer 1953), the book of procedures of the congregation. In these writings appear some details of the pulpit of the Tebah in synagogue where they made pronouncements of political or communitarian, as well as the place of announcement of the result of the elections of Mahamad (community). In fact the formal existence of Kahal Zur Israel gave an atmosphere where Judaism present among the members of Kahal invaded Jews’ street, and these did not go unnoticed by passersby. In the deletion to the inquisition they are descriptions using the talit in their space (WIZNITZER, 1953). This was where the Marrano of Olinda and elsewhere sought to realize Teshuva, the return to Judaism. Kahal Zur Israel with the arrival in Recife of Rabbi Aboab da Fonseca will in fact be much sought after by the Marranos of several localities near Recife.
Other writings where Kahal Zur Israel will be marked are in the series of accusations to the tribunal of the Inquisition. For example, Manoel Fernandes Caminha, a soldier who had served in Pernambuco, denounced a series of people whom he had met in Recife, who “publicly professed the law of Moses, performing their rites and ceremonies, joining three times in the day in the sinagogue that they had at the entrance of the port of Recife, at the right hand of the band within, walking dressed as Jews. “
It is worth highlighting the trajectory of Izaque Tartas de Castro, a Jew who leaves Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and comes to settle in Recife, with an express mission of promoting the returning of Marranes to Judaism. Marranism can not be defined only by the disappearance of a world and the reestablishment of a new world created by the discovering of Cristobal Colon. America is confused with the figure of the Marrano that in reality is another identity, that of the New Christian. Or as Shmuel Trigano says:
“The Marrano is by definition an actor — a paradox — in history. In this he is not only the fossilized remnant of a vanished world on which a new world would be built. What makes the marrano is that the one who is doomed to disappear structurally and essentially undertakes to survive and continue in its disappearance and thanks to it. Thus Marrano judaicity is more what laboratory of modern man in the emerging nation-state: called to duplication and its identity as New Christian outside and Jewish inside, does not the Marrano experience citizenship In the public filed but in duality with the private domain? Thus the Jewish myth of America is something other than a testimony buried in the unconscious. The Marrano is one of the first pioneers of modernity” (1992: 349)[2].
This group came to be denominated of Bnei Anussim[3] and affirms descent from the old New-Christian families, occurring in some cases, according to them, the conservation of Judaizing familiar practices. Starting from collective or individual initiatives, they sought to be inserted or recognized by the “official Jewish community,” the Ashkenazi community that began its immigration to the city in the first decades of the twentieth century. Such a position resulted in the official community’s need to analyse how the anussim could be inserted into their milieu, leading to ambiguous and sometimes conflicting positions on both sides, as very well described by Nuno Moraes de Brito (2014).
Izaque de Castro in 1646 in Recife was justly accused of Judaizing, of bringing the Marranos into the Judaism. He was taken to Salvador and then transported prisoner to Lisbon. Without ever giving up his Judaism, whenever he had a good faith and could not left the laws of Moses. Izaque de Castro, at age twenty-one, receives the maximum conviction of the Tribunal of the Holy Office: to be burned alive at a campfire (Lipiner, 1992). The public presence of Izaque de Castro in Recife clearly shows one of the roles that the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue had in this colonial period of the Dutch presence in Recife. There is a great deal of historical documentation of the activities of the Jews during this period in Recife and also on the return of crypto-Jews to Judaism.
Daniel Oliveira Breda in his dissertation cited above refers to an important documentation on the daily life of the Jews in Recife that shows exactly how these Jews placed the city of Recife geopolitically on an important map of the international trading centres, either through the modernization of sugar production, slave trade and increasing commercial shipping. Thus, Jews could fit into the whole of the West Indies Company (WIC) interests and commodification strategies, among which was, especially in the urban spaces of the towns and warehouses, the regulation of the population by the criteria of Dutch culture, based In Calvinism. Thinking these urban communities as corporations constituted by several smaller groups. Thus the group of Jews could be perceived, despite their religious differentiation, to be able to harmonize with such precepts. The exercise of Judaism was undoubtedly a way in which they organized themselves communally, exercising the moral and civic corpus of Judaism a key role in the confluence of Calvinist morality with Jewish interests.
With the expulsion of the Dutch, the synagogues were closed and the follow-up of Judaism was strictly prohibited. The Jews, then, were left with only one alternative to maintain their religious identity: to perform their ceremonies in secret in their houses. And to ensure security and life itself, conversion to Catholicism was the viable alternative. In 1656, the building of the Kahal Zur Israel synagogue is donated to João Fernandes Vieira. In 1679, he and his wife donated the property to the priests of the Congregation of the Oratory of Santo Amaro, in the Rua do Bom Jesus, until 1999, a commercial house of electrical equipment operated in that building.
The Marranos and Gentrification in Recife
The Kahal Zur Israel synagogue was hidden under several layers of land for 346 years. The researchers of the Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Institute of Pernambuco and, in particular the historian José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, assured the existence of the synagogue. The cartographic and documentation studies carried out by the team of the architect José Luiz da Mota Menezes, determining exactly the place for the archaeological excavations, which was carried out by the team of Prof. Marcos Albuquerque archaeologist of the Federal University of Pernambuco (Kaufman 2001).
These interests in the gentrification of the old port of Recife generated the project, which in 1997 was supported by the Ministry of Culture in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) called Monumenta, which consisted of archaeological work aimed at restoring and preserving the historic center of Recife. This Program included the excavation and recovery of the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, whose ruins and vestiges must have been a building of Rua do Bom Jesus. Through the efforts of several entities, an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Culture, Recife Municipality, the Israeli Federation of Pernambuco (FIPE), the Israeli Confederation of Brazil (CONIB) and the Cultural Foundation of Banco Safra which financed the research and restoration works of the synagogue. The actions of this project were carried out by the Centro Cultural Judaico de Pernambuco under the coordination of Dr. Tania Kaufman (2001).
This immense work consisted of the withdrawal of about seven tons of land and more than 1000 m2. of plaster of the synagogue buildings. Throughout the centuries, the foundation of the building had undergone several modifications, due to the diverse landfills undertaken for the settlement of the city of Recife. Through the excavations it was verified the existence of 8 different levels of layer. During the excavations, precious archaeological material was found: many fragments of Dutch pipes, a piece of crockery with a menorah, a seven-pointed Jewish candelabra, and a few pottery, enamelled earthenware brought by the Portuguese settlers. The architect José Luiz da Mota Menezes researched the architectural details of the houses[4] of this historic period in other places where the West Indies Company was doing business in the Caribbean Sea (Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao). The furniture, the layout of the furniture of the whole Synagogue was done through the same research procedure, as well as the format and material of the ceiling were results of researches carried out with Portuguese and Spanish synagogues of the seventeenth century and in Dutch residences in Pernambuco.
Figura 5: Bnei Anusim celebrating Purim 2017 in front at Kahal Zur Israel (Photo: Jefferson Martins).
It was only in December 2001 that the synagogue was opened to the public. On the ground floor of the synagogue, people can enjoy permanent exhibitions on Jewish culture and the history of the Jewish presence in Pernambuco. In addition to showing the archaeological excavations with the original Dutch floor, the various layers of the walls and the containment wall of the river Beberibe are visualized. This archaeological work made it possible to find the Mikve of the Synagogue on the ground floor. The tank made of stones on stones, without the presence of mortar, measuring 0.70m in diameter by 1.70m of depth fed, by a water table limpid and fluent water. This Mikve was examined by a Rabbinical Council, made up of rabbis from Brazil and Argentina, and only after a rigorous inspection has its authenticity been proved (Kaufman 2001).
In the second floor there is a hall that would have been the place of the cantilenas of Tefilot. The Aaron Hakodseh where the sefer Torah is kept is in front of the Tebah, and this is towards the east. There is a mezzanine where the women could sitting on benches, to watch the religious ceremonies. This space is currently used for holding conferences and seminars on Jewish culture. There is also the Documentation Center congregating the cultural activities destined to the preservation of the Jewish memory in Pernambuco and in the country. The building of the synagogue, because it was considered an important element of the Brazilian historical memory, was registered in the official list of the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Patrimony.
After completing the patrimonial intervention for physical restoration of the building and formalizing the Centro Cultural Judaico de Pernambuco, the next step was to think about how to create an atmosphere of “museality” that, in the association between culture and knowledge, could generate new parameters in the representation of reality contained in heritage of Judaism in Recife.
We also have information that there are other locations in the Caribbean where the Spanish-Portuguese synagogues undergo restoration activities aimed at showing the public how the Jews lived in these places in the seventeenth century. We have little elements of comparison on how this process has developed in the Caribbean. But it would be interesting to know how they are developed and to understand how a place considered by the Jews to be “sacred” can be placed in a special language of communication that favours a direct connection between the audiences and the material and immaterial patrimony are presented about the sacred and profane of Judaism. In other words, how Judaism is being “shared” with a local culture.
Open questions
In this text we show the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue as a material and immaterial good that relates to the museological actions of specific interests of gentrification of an urban space and above all, of architectural preservation of the buildings in these patrimonial spaces. Therefore, the organization of this place has undoubtedly been defined in a way to accompany the specific demands that arise from museological uses of public buildings, as well as in the field of touristic activities linked to the interests of the city, especially in promoting exhibitions, thematic publications with pedagogical purposes.
Of course, in the reconstruction and patrimonialization actions developed by these interinstitutional teams, each of them with their own interests, they could not imagine that one of the results of this immense work would lead to a specific action of groups of Marranos in relation to their personal interests which are focused mainly on the idea of returning to Judaism. If on the one hand the meanings of patrimonialization actions led to revitalize the jewish memory and also a very good piece of information for improving activities towards tourism. On the other hand, these studies on memory and documentation have led to the particular interest of groups of Marrane to a feeling of revitalization. In this sense, the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue becomes the place of the important Jewish memory in Recife and the current groups of Marrane in the city always seek to manifest publicly in the street in front of the synagogue for their public activities.
Current research from the Pernambuco Jewish Archive, led by Dr. Tânia Kaufman shows the interest of many people who seek to return to Judaism. To bring the past into the present, in an intelligible way, we “listen” not only to the narratives of history, but also to the popular imagination of the region as a repository of Jewish customs and traditions. Documents and iconographies were contextualized in the spaces of socio-cultural memory and their representations. The alterities that define the boundaries of the “other,” the “different,” the “excluded” gain space in the language used to offer the public an interactive relationship with the Jewish heritage. Recent research has revealed that, in inland regions of several Brazilian coastal states, some groups present as Bnei Anussim. Despite important documentation on the rich New-Christian and Jewish past of Pernambuco in the colonial period (16th and 17th centuries), Recife receives Ashkenazi migration in the twentieth century and forms the official Jewish community in Recife (Kaufman 2001).
In fact, the group we call Bnei Anussim in Recife is not homogeneous (Brito 2014), because there are differences in terms of socioeconomic conditions, cultural levels or degree of observance of Judaism. There are especially two major factors of differentiation: those who have officially converted and integrated into the official Jewish community, and those who do not accept them or have not yet been able to carry out such a process and remain on the fringes of that community. This social group serves as evidence in the debate on the Jewish identity in Recife. We can observe that in its public testimonies, this group Bnei Anussim looks for a specific place in the set of the Jewish identities of Recife.
In view of the complexity of this theme presented here and the need for greater observation of this phenomenon, we are convinced that, in this case, the processes of gentrification, patrimonialization and museology lead to a new definition of the role of the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue differently from that which was expressed in the revitalization project of the Old Recife neighbourhood. Our argument, in this text, was to show that this is not a new role, since what can be perceived nowadays is that the actions of architectural revitalization of the Synagogue in Recife lead groups of Bnei Anusim to speak out publicly about the return to Judaism. The film “Hidden Star of the Sertao” by Elaine Eiger and Luize Valente along with other news pieces and various media published shortly after the official re-inauguration of the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue in 2001, show exactly the interests of the Bnei Anussim related to building of the Synagogue Kahal Zur Israel today in Recife.
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Notes:
[*] This text was published. How to quote:
ATHIAS, Renato Memory and Architectural Preservation of the First Synagogue in the Américas. In KESSELER, K., KNUFINKE, U., VON KIENLIN, A., e WEBER, A. Synagogue and Museum. Braunschsweig: Bet Tfila & Pertersbeg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2018, pp 75–86.
[1] I would like to thank Salomon Buzaglo, Director of the Institute For Sephadi and Anussim Studies of Natanya Academic College, and Samuel Sabba and Gisèle Ranglais for all their support to my stay in Natanya. Also I would like to Thank Dr. Alexander von Kienlin, Dr. Ulrich Knufinke, Dr. Katrin Keßler, and the entire Bet Tefila team for accepting this paper, as well as their support to received in order to present the first version of this paper in the 3rd International Congress on Jewish Architecture “Synagogue and Museum”, Braunschweig, Nov. 21st — 23rd in 2016. I would also like to congratulate you on the initiative of holding this congress. I would like also to thank Sonia Sette President of the Israeli Federation of Pernambuco (FIPE) and all her staff for the support needed to participate in this congress.
[2] “Le marrane est par définition un acteur — paradoxal — de l’histoire. En cela il n’est pas uniquement le reste fossilisé d’un monde disparu sur lequel se construirait un monde nouveau. Ce qui fait le marrane, c’est que celui qui est voué à la disparition structurellement et essentiellement entreprend de survivre et de continuer dans sa disparition et grâce à elle. Ainsi la judéité marrane est plus quel laboratoire de l’homme moderne dans l’État-nation naissant: appelé au dédoublement et son identité en Nouveau Chrétien au dehors et Juif au dedans, le marrane ne fait-il pas l’expérience de la citoyenneté relevant du champ public mais posée en dualité avec le cham privée? Ainsi le mythe juif de l’Amérique est-il autre chose qu’un témoignage enfoui dans l’inconscient. Le marrane se compte parmi les tout premiers défricheurs de la modernité (1992:349).
[3] Bnei Anusim is a modern term used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jewish which were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain and Portugal. Although a few did their travel to America, doing so was particularly difficult since only those Spaniards who could certify no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were allowed to travel to the New World. Nevertheless, the constant flow of Spanish emigration to Latin America up until well into the 20th century has resulted to many Latin Americans having Converso ancestry, in the same way as modern Spaniards do. The Bnei Anusim concept has gained some popularity among the Hispanic Community in the American South West and in countries in Latin America, whereby hundreds of Hispanics and Portuguese have expressed a belief that they are descendants of such Conversos and a desire to return to the fold of Judaism.
[4] LIST OF HOUSES which the West India Company had in Brazil on the Recife and in Maurice Stadt and which were appropriated from them by the Crown and subjects of Portugal together with the value of the same at the lowest estimate. In: BLOOM, Herbert I. “A Study of Brazilian Jewish History 1623–1654, based chiefly upon the findings of the late Samuel Oppenheim”. PAJHS. v. 33, 1934. Appendix C. p. 124- 125.