Azores (Portuguese)

AZORES - THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

All Azores Jewish cemeteries are inactive. "This group of nine islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was discovered in the 15th century by Portuguese navigators and colonized during the reign of Prince Henry the Navigator." Source with map: http://home.pacifier.com/~kcardoz/maps.html - link no longer available

AZORES: A Guide to Jewish Sites. [October 2000]

Some contend that Jews came to the islands in the late 15th century, but the first documented Jewish settlement dates from 1818. Terceira and Sao Miguel each had a Jewish community with members from Portugal, Morocco and perhaps Spain and Gibraltar, most engaged in commerce and shipping. The 1848 Jewish population was 250 with the most important Jewish community was in Ponta Delgada. During World War II, Ashkenazi Jews from Germany and Poland fled Europe by way of the Iberian Peninsula to settle in the Azores, but left following the war. The native Sephardic population declined through emigration, death, and intermarriage. [April 2002]
http://www.saudades.org/cverde.htm [April 2002]
http://www.isjm.org/Links/azores.htm [April 2002]
http://www.theazores.net available in English and Portuguese [October 2005]