Sinagoga e Judiaria 

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A Sinagoga de Tomar é o único templo hebraico proto-renascença exixtente no nosso país. A planta quadrangular e a cobertura abobadada assente em colunas e mísulas incrustadas nas paredes denotam influências orientais.

The synagogue and the Jewish Quarter

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The Tomar Synagogue is the only proto-Renaissance Hebrew temple in our country. The quadrangular plan and the vaulted ceiling, resting on columns and inlaid consoles, reveal eastern influences. It was built in the 15th century and closed in 1496, when the Portuguese Jews were expelled from the country. It was later turned into a prison and in the 17th there is a reference to it as the S. Bartolomeu Chapel. In the 19th century it was used a barn, a granary, a goods warehouse and a storage room. Only in 1921 was it possible to restore its lost dignity when it was classified as a National Monument. Samuel Schwarz, a Polish Jewish researcher into Hebrew Culture, saved it from the chaotic state it was in by acquiring it in 1923 and donating it to the Portuguese state in 1939 to house the Abraão Zacuto Luso-Hebrew Museum. Excavation work in 1985 uncovered hot water systems and water pots, proving that the space was used for purifying baths. In the Middle Age, the Jews, like other merchants, travelled the country and their visits to Tomar did not go unnoticed by Prince Henry the Navigator who encouraged them to settle in the Rua da Judiaria (later called Rua Nova and today Rua Joaquim Jacinto).
There may well have been doors at the eastern and western ends of that street, where it crosses Rua dos Moinhos and Rua Direita respectively, which would have been closed at night.
The eraliset reference to this community dates from 1315 and the contribuition it made to the growth of Tomar in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.
Proofs of this, though for the opposite reason, can be found in the reply from the Tomar Town Council in 1609 to a request from the Lisbon council for financial assintance in organizing a recepcion for King Filipe II who would be travelling to Lisbon from Spain. In it they express their request due to the penury of the people of Tomar and also because “more than 50 men of the Nation were being held by the Holy Office, and even more had left, who were extremely wealthy and who held all the wealth of the townspeople”, a clear allusion to the religious persecution of the Jews by the Inquisition. 

Symbology:

On the walls of the Sinagogue, the twelve consoles symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel. The four columns represent the four matriarchs, Sara, Rebecca, Lea and Raquel, the last two of whom werethe twin daughters of Laban. This is why the capitals decorated with plant motifs are the same on two columns but different on the others.

Address:
Rua Dr. Joaquim Jacinto, 73
2300-577 Tomar
Tel.: (+351) 249 329 823
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Núcleo Interpretativo da Sinagoga de Tomar

O Núcleo Interpretativo da Sinagoga de Tomar e do Museu Luso-Hebraico Abraão Zacuto abriu ao público em 15 de outubro de 2019, após obras de beneficiação da Sinagoga.

Na visita a este Núcleo, ficará a conhecer as origens do judaísmo, e sobretudo informações acerca da presença judaica em Tomar.”