Brian Winter

This book might be of interest to those interested in the situation in Portugal. Written by Naomi Leite and based partially on research carried out on a Jewish Heritage Tour of Portugal back in 2002. It analyses the effect of cultural tourism on the inhabitants on Portuguese towns where Jews were known to have lived in the past.

A thought. The other day I was looking for a recipe for tempura? I found a note that it was introduced to Japan in the 16th C by the Portuguese. Hmm that's around the time many Portuguese jews were fleeing Portugal for safety in foreign parts which for me at least raised questions, is there any evidence of Jewish presence in Japan? So I did a couple of googles looking for a reference to the rabbi ...

While working on my sephardic family I noticed that not all of my ancestors came from Portugal, indeed I have just realised that the de la Penha family seem to have come from southern Spain and gradually moved north into Bayonne France, before settling in Amsterdam. However, the son of Abraham de la Penha b. 1663? d. Amsterdam 1732, seems to have had a son called Isaac de la Penha born in Simaria ...

I'll be visiting Rotterdam at some point in May and would like to know if any Jewish cemeteries in Rotterdam have been photographed and any data collected? As I have two members of my family that died in Rotterdam but I have no record of their burial. Apparently there's a small one at Jan van Loonslaan and another at Toepad (towpath?)

In researching my family a while back I came across an interesting book that had been published in the US on the Belmont Belmont family at that time I had on saved only a few pages as seemed pertinent at the time to my ow research. I just tried to find the pages again but discover that Google has now scanned and OCR'd the book so it is available for all. Names included are the Belmont and Querido ...

I have had this for a number of years and never seen it anywhere else. Not sure if the language is latin or ancient Portuguese but I'd be interested in discovering just what D. Afonso III was saying about this coat of arms or brazão? Was it purely co-incidental that the star of David was included at that time or was he saying something about his own lineage???

Hi everybody, I just joined because after years of thinking that my father's family were all Dutch, recently I began doing further research in order to apply for Portuguese nationality under the Law of right of return. I was surprised to find so many Portuguese names amongst my Dutch ancestors including hundreds of Queridos and Cardosos amongst many others. To date it would appear that at least 15...