From A Brazilian newspaper article stating that internationally famous Brazilian author, Jorge Amado , was a descendant of Jewish exiles from Portugual:"A commentator for a Rio de Janeiro newspaper raised the possibility that Jorge Amado was of Lebanese descent. Paloma Jorge Amado, his daughter, replied: “The Amados came from Portugal with Nassau at the time of the Inquisition. This made a cousin of ours (...) think we were Dutch. Dad brought him to reality: we were Sephardic Jews on the run... And I'm sure that's what it was. Without a doubt, Dad looks like an Arab.”We can deduce, then, that the ancestors of the Amado family arrived in Brazil in the 17th century, leaving not directly from Portugal, but from the Netherlands; and they are Sephardic Jews, not Arabs. If they were fleeing the Inquisition, they were New Christians, that is, they were already converted to Christianity, as the Inquisition did not have jurisdiction over Jews, but only over those baptized into the Roman Catholic religion.Sepharad is the Hebrew name for the Iberian Peninsula, mentioned in the prophecy of Obadiah, verse 20, as one of the places inhabited by the exiles of Jerusalem. The term Sephardic, or Sephardic, or Sephardic, refers to the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the century. 15 that preserve Hispanic cultural characteristics.At the time, there were two expulsions. That of 1492, whose decree was signed by Isabella of Castile and Fernando of Aragon, ordered the departure of Jews who did not convert to Christianity. The kings' intention was that the territory that today makes up Spain would be exclusively Christian. That of 1497, when the Jews were expelled from Portugal (or forcibly converted), under D. Manuel, the Venturous.Since the founding of the State of Israel (1948), the term Sephardic has been used to designate Jews of origin other than that of the Ashkenazis (of German or Central European origin) and the Mizrahis (of Arab origin).The year 1492 is remarkable in the history of Spain. The conquest of Granada, the last territory of the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, takes place; the expulsion of the Jews, who took their culture and language to the countries that welcomed them; the publication of the first grammar written in the Neo-Latin language, Castilian; the discovery of America, on October 12th.The predominant dialect at that time in Spain, Castilian, began to spread throughout the world: on the one hand, Jews; on the other, old Christians, new Christians, crypto-Jews. It is not known exactly how many Jews left. According to more traditional estimates, those who converted would be around 50 thousand; those who preferred to emigrate, around 180 thousand. They headed for Portugal, Navarra or France; Netherlands (Netherlands and Belgium). Some chose to settle in Italy; others made their way towards the Ottoman Empire. Many went to North Africa.So, what we deduce is that the Amado family left Portugal for the Netherlands and from there came, with Maurício de Nassau, to Brazil. Nassau allowed freedom of worship among Christians and Jews. In 1637, the Kahal Zur Israel (Rock of Israel) synagogue was founded in Recife, the first in the Americas.With the expulsion of the Dutch, many Jews returned to Holland. Others went to the Caribbean and from there arrived in New Amsterdam, now New York. Those who remained in Brazil spread across the Northeast or headed to Minas Gerais, Goiás and Mato Grosso, attracted by the discovery of gold and precious stones. The bandeirantes, most of whom were New Christians or declared Jews, had already gone to this region.The remnants that remained in the Northeast found shelter in the sugar cane mills that belonged to committed Jews or to New Christians who Judaized, that is, they were crypto-Jews. Currently, after centuries of inquisitorial persecution, Brazilians, especially those from the Northeast and their descendants, are searching for their Jewish roots. They are the bnei anusim, the “children of the forced”.Paloma Amado adds, in her response, that her father “loved the fact that he was of Sephardic origin. He said: “Jewish Arab and obá from Xangô, do you want anything better?”