Sefarad, 2019

Director: Luis Ismael

Producer: Maria Pacheco

Language: Portuguese with English subtitles

Available on Amazon Prime and iTunes

Reviewed By Vivienne Roumani-Denn^*

Sefarad is the enlightening and historically accurate story of the revival of Judaism in Oporto, Portugal, told through the life of the convert Captain Artur Carlos de Barros Basto, a distinguished veteran of the First World War and the leader of Oporto’s small (50 people), largely Eastern European immigrant Jewish community. In 1923 he became aware of the existence of crypto-Jewish communities in remote villages, and he began reaching out to “rescue” them; he took note of their practices, which had been influenced by 400 years of separation from traditional Judaism and of church attendance to mask their continued devotion to their ancestral faith. The story moves quickly, and the technique of using cards with just dates and facts over an empty screen keeps the chronology of the story and events clear.

With the help of the knowledgeable Menasheh Ben Dov, who settled in Oporto when his visa to the US was denied, the Captain optimistically went about establishing a Jewish institute to educate sixty young villagers and crypto-Jews in the prayers and rituals of Judaism, which they would then take back to their respective villages. His optimistic single-mindedness did not permit him to entertain the repeated warnings he received, including those from his partner in this effort: “Let’s suppose these men are Jews, Captain. How do we know they will understand our ritual?” -- or want it? He reached out to the Anglo Jewish Association in London, and succeeded in involving the Association’s representative, Lucien Wolff, to bring international visibility to the crypto-Jewish issue.

Despite profound skepticism, both within Portugal and outside, the Captain tirelessly pursued the building of a beautiful synagogue in Oporto, which still exists today. Then a tragic turn of events, the beginning of the Second World War, filled the synagogue with Jews in transit through Portugal while fleeing the Nazis, and supporting them became the primary focus of the community. The film reminds us that antisemitism is ever present, whether covert or blunt, in Portugal or elsewhere.

Foreshadowing Captain Basto’s downfall, we are warned, through his teachings, of the dangers of Lashon Hara (the evil tongue) and envy, in this case precipitated anonymously by some of the people he tried to “rescue,” but it is the intolerance and injustice of the external community that finally ended his career. The story doesn’t end there, however. We see continuity through his granddaughter, Isabel Ferreira Lopes, who led the fight to have his reputation restored.

There are charming phrases that help move the film along and establish context. While referring to the first Jews in New York, who were of Portuguese origin, the Captain said “New York’s gain is Portugal’s loss,” echoing the welcome to the Jews fleeing Spain in 1492 that is attributed to the Ottoman Sultan. Or “all Portuguese are descendants of Jews, also Brazilians.”

One jarring distortion of the historical record was the frequent reference to “the expulsion.” While there was indeed a brief expulsion order in Portugal in 1496, it was quickly changed in 1497 to a single choice that affected most of Portugal’s Jews: forced conversion or death. One wonders why the filmmaker felt the need to make the Portuguese situation appear to mirror that of Spain, where expulsion was an option.

Well-worth watching, the one hour and thirty-four minute drama about a topic that is not widely known in the Jewish world raises issues that are still debated today: Jewish identity, assimilation, values, and more.

* Vivienne Roumani-Denn is an oral historian, writer, and documentary filmmaker. She served as the Judaica Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, where she created the website www.jewsoflibya.com in 1998, and as the Executive Director of the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History in New York, where she founded the Sephardic Library and Archives and the Exhibition Gallery. Her chapter “Overall Vision of the History and Heritage of the Jews of Libya” will appear in Juifs d’ailleurs, ed. E. Bruder (Paris: Albin Michel, 2019). Roumani-Denn’s documentaries The Last Jews of Libya (2007), narrated by Isabella Rossellini, and Out of Print (2013), narrated by Meryl Streep, both premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.