Museums and Palaces

Jewish Community Interpretation Centre

The Jewish Community Interpretation Centre is located in the historical centre of Torres Vedras, next to the castle and 50 metres from the old Jewish quarter, and occupies a group of buildings of traditional architecture, known as Cerca da Josefa.

There, a memorial to the Torres Vedras victims of the Inquisition is erected: the story of how the old Jewish quarter was appropriated by the Christian community, by converting the synagogue into barns and erecting there one of the points of the procession of the Senhor dos Passos is told. 

It is a facility composed by three spaces: in the first room, the Jewish presence in Portugal and in Torres Vedras is explained, from its origins to the forced expulsion and conversion, presenting a documentary collection such as contracts, pardon letters or royal charters; in the second room, the Jewish quarter that existed in Torres Vedras is reconstructed and the main families of the community are described, indicating names, occupations and daily practices, from which the Guedelha family stands out, to which the Chief Rabbi D. Judas Guedelha, founder of the great synagogue of Lisbon (1307), belonged; the last room is dedicated to the forced conversion of Jews into Christians, called from then on New Christians, to the denunciations of Jewish practices and to the impact that the inquisitorial activity had and that constitutes the most dramatic part of the history of the Jewish community.