Portugal: Jewish interpretive center to open in town where “Rembrandt’s doctor” Ephraim Bueno was born

The town of Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, in northern Portugal near the border with Spain, expects to open in April a long-planned Jewish  interpretive center, to highlight local Jewish history but also in hopes of drawing tourists.

Dr. Ephraim Bueno — whom Rembrandt depicted in two portraits — was born there in 1599.

The LUSA news agency said the facility will occupy “a two-story building that was owned by the municipality and which has been refurbished and adapted to new functions, with funds from European funds, [and] the municipality invested around €150,000.”

The municipality wants to convey the “message of the importance that the Jews had in their journey and passage through Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo and to take advantage of all the potential in terms of Jewish tourism, so that it also starts to flow and operating” in the town,  mayor Paulo Langrouva told LUSA.

He said: “The [Interpretative Jewish] Center is ready. The physical work is finished. At this moment, we are also finalizing the entire work of contents, that is, the immaterial component of the contents, and the inauguration is planned, in principle, in the course of the April.”

According to the Rede de Judarias Portugal web site, there were references to a Jewish presence in the town starting at the beginning of the 13th century.

There was a Jewish quarter, and the site of the medieval synagogue is known:

The old Synagogue, located on the corner of Rua da Sinagoga (Synagogue Street) and Rua do Páteo do Castelo (Páteo do Castelo Street) has been transformed into the cistern that can be seen today although maintaining its base construction.

The web site also says that a parokhet is displayed in the Vermiosa Church.

The Jewish Interpretive Center has been in the works for several years. Langrouva described plans for it in an article in 2015. (Click here and scroll down.)

He told LUSA that the facility will have four exhibition rooms and also a small synagogue.

 Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 found refuge in Figueira and nearby villages before that region, too, fell victim to the Inquisition, forcing Jews to leave or convert to Catholicism: those who stayed often continued to practice Judaism clandestinely as “Conversos”.

Langrouva said exhibits will focus on Jewish personalities who were born in the area or had an impact there.

Key among them was Ephraim Bueno, a physician and biblical scholar born in Castelo Rodrigo in 1599 (he was given the Spanish name Martin Alvarez). Part of a Jewish medical dynasty, he studied in Bordeaux and settled in Amsterdam, where he flourished as a doctor and became part of the painter Rembrandt’s intellectual circle of friends.

Rembrandt depicted Bueno two times — in an oil portrait and an etching in 1647.

According to an article about Bueno by George M. Weisz and William R. Albury:

The Bordeaux University Archives describe in detail the ceremony where Ephraim was awarded his doctorate. The three examiners were all descendants of converted Jews, so-called Marranos, whose families had lived in southern France for generations. The patron of the thesis, Professor Lopes (an old friend of Ephraim’s father), accorded him the title of “Magnus in Medicina.” From there, Ephraim joined the some 400 Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam.

Apart from practicing medicine, he was also a scholar of the Bible. Indeed, together with Ben Manasseh and Jonah Abravanel, Ephraim published poetry, translated into Spanish the Psalms of David, and in 1650 published Pene Rabbah, an index to the biblical passages found in the Midrash Rabbah. He also founded the charitable organization “Torah Or” in Amsterdam. He must have been appreciated as a physician as he attended, together with his father Joseph, the Regent of the Netherlands, the Prince of Orange.

Bueno is buried in the Portuguese Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk, near Amsterdam.

Weisz and Albury write:

Ephraim Iskiau Bueno was born Jewish, made a lifetime contribution to medicine, and died as a Jew. His was buried in the Ouderkerk Portuguese Jewish cemetery, Amsterdam. The gravestone gives the date of his death as 30 Hesvan in the year 5426 of the Jewish calendar, which fell on 8 November 1665

Read the article “Rembrandt’s Jewish Physician—Dr Ephraim Bueno (1599–1665): A Brief Medical History” by George M. Weisz and William R. Albury