In Senegal and Capo Verde

In Senegal, Jewish traces are less difficult to follow. Portuguese Jews lived on the small coast of Senegal and in the Cape Verde Islands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They had settled there to practice Judaism freely and to trade. The trade of hides, skins, wax, ivory and also like all the traders of the region, Portuguese, English, French, Africans, the trade of the slaves. Under the rule of the Portuguese, the Jews suffered the Inquisition which forced them to convert with their entourage. Jews were judaizing their slaves. The archives reveal that the New Christians continued to practice Judaism sometimes hiding, sometimes very openly, as in 1597, the Cape Verde surgeon, Manuel Nunes, denounced by the treasurer of the Archdiocese. And also Nuno Francez Da Costa condemned for having declared “that he preferred an uncle of the said slave with whom he lived maritally to all confessions and masses”. Those Jews who decided to stay Jewish left a descent. Some researchers went to search for Jews from Cape Verde in Senegal. Izabelle de Moraes, a Brazilian researcher, did not find the Rufisque synagogue closed by Isabelle la Catholique. Israeli Ambassador Zvi Loker has written a book about the Jewish Portuguese nation in the Caribbean. Portuguese Jews have also left descendants in the Caribbean. In the eighteenth century there was a mixed-race Jewish community in Paramaribo, Suriname (Darkhe Yesharim).
Zvi Loker had wondered about the possible existence of Jews in Cape Verde many years ago. In Dakar, Capverdians known as the Portuguese tell that they lit a candle every night and two candles on Friday night. They did not know the reason. Some were touching the doorframe when they returned home, which is reminiscent of the way Jews embrace the mezuzah at the entrance of their homes.
Very recently, a Capverdienne told me her story that she kept secret for a long time. It is a story that one no longer hoped to discover, similar to that of the Marannes of Portugal, who have maintained Jewish practices by hiding for centuries. Dulce David, a Cape Verdean singer who writes and composes beautiful songs, remembers her childhood when her grandmother lit candles on Friday night. She never lit a fire on Saturday. His father prayed in Portuguese and spoke a few words in Hebrew. Families practiced circumcision. We did not speak of circumcision but of baptism. It is therefore the “priest” who was circumcising. Dulce has never heard of Chanukah but a holiday party. Everything was hidden and made up. She did not understand why she was not going to Mass at Christmas. Her aunt explained that they were doing Mass at home and that they did not need to go to church. It must be understood that the word “Jew” was a heavy, difficult, shameful and dangerous word. Dulce’s father reports that his grandfather’s great-grandfather made boats – the Cape Verde Jews were sailors – and the day he was surprised to light candles his factory was burned.
This situation is the result of several centuries of Inquisition and dozens of years of Portuguese fascism followed by an independent Marxist, pro-Soviet and pro-Arab government. It is only now in the era of democratization, planes, tourism and television that we can pronounce the word “Jew” in Cape Verde, that we must pronounce it, otherwise it is a story that would disappear. A friendship association Israel-Cape Verde was founded with mainly the participation of Moroccan Jews. In the nineteenth century, there was a second Jewish immigration to Cape Verde, made up of Moroccan Jews who were trading. They passed through Gibraltar where the British issued passports to them. The identity of the Jews of Cape Verde is marked by their determination transmitted as a legacy and also a nostalgia for a lost culture, the nostalgia of the islands and nostalgia for exile. There is indeed a Jewish accent in the melody of the Portuguese saudade that sings Dulce with his beautiful voice.