Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto founded the Jewish Community of Porto in 1923 after discovering his own Jewish ancestry. He helped establish Judaism in Porto and assisted crypto-Jews and Jewish refugees during World War II. Despite facing persecution from the military dictatorship in the 1930s for his faith, Barros Basto continued supporting the Jewish community in Porto, overseeing the construction of a synagogue and aiding hundreds fleeing the Holocaust.

1. Founder of the Jewish Community of Porto

2. Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto was born on 18th December
1887 in Amarante and died in Porto on 8th March 1961.
He had a military career, but he was also a writer who
published several works related to Judaism.
He was an important Jewish leader and founded the Jewish
Community in Porto with twenty Jewish askhenazim man
and their families (more or less forty people). He helped the
crypto-jews profess Judaism and also helped the Jewish
refugees during World War II.
Picture 1. Barros Basto decorated
(Source: Barros Basto’s family files).

3. Barros Basto found out, through his grandfather, he had
Jewish ancestors, although his family was no longer a
practitioner. He only became aware of the existence of
Jews in Portugal in 1904, when he read a newspaper
article about the opening of the synagogue of Shaaré
Tikvah in Lisbon.
When he started his military life, he was forced to
attend a course at the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa. At
the time, he addressed himself to the synagogue of the
city in a failed attempt to be admitted. Despite this, he
didn't give up.
Picture 2. Medals, sword and a cap.

4. In 1910, after the revolutionary movement
which led to the establishment of the Republic,
it was Barros Basto, a Republican, who raised
the Republican flag at the City Hall in the city of
Oporto.
Picture 3. The telegram where we are told about the flying
of the flag by Barros Basto in 1910, after the Republic
Revolution. (Source: Barros Basto’s family files).

5. During the First World War Lieutenant Barros Basto
commanded the battalion of the Portuguese
Expeditionary Corps being promoted to captain.
After learning Hebrew he went to Morocco where he
began the process of conversion to Judaism. When
he completed this process in Tangier he was
circumcised (Jewish ritual) and was renamed
Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh.
Picture 4. Portuguese soldiers in the First World War.
Capitain Barros Basto is among them(Source: Barros
Basto’s family files).

6. When he returned to Lisbon he married Lea Israel
Montero Azancot, from the Lisbon Israeli Community, with
whom he had two sons.
He had several grandchildren, including Isabel Ferreira
Lopes, who is the current Vice-President of the Israeli
Community of Porto.
Picture 6. Barros Basto and Lea
Azancot on their wedding day
(Source: Barros Basto’s family File).
Picture 5. Invitation to the wedding of the military.
(Source: Barros Basto’s family File).

7. In 1921, he returned to Oporto with his wife and he realized
that in the city there were less than twenty Ashkenazim Jews
(Jews from traditional Central Europe and Eastern Europe)
they had no synagogue and were not organized, so that they
had to move to Lisbon for religious reasons whenever
necessary .
When he became aware of this situation he started thinking of
the building of a Synagogue and in 1923 decided to officially
register the Israeli Community and later the Israeli Theological
Centre in the Civilian Government of Oporto .
The Synagogue only began to be built years later, in 1929, but
the Community was already organized in a rented house.
Picture 7. Barros Basto in 1927
(Source: Barros Basto’s family files).

8. In 1925 the first alleged crypto-jews appeared in the
community.
Barros Basto often visited villages and towns of Trás-os-
Montes and Beiras looking for more people interested
in returning to Judaism.
This measure took the attention of some people, as it is
the case of the Jewish community in London. In 1927 he
created the "Portuguese Marranos Committee", an
organization to help people who wanted to return to
Judaism.
Picture 8 . “Obra do resgate”
(Source: Barros Basto’s family file).

9. In the same year the book “Obra do Resgate” was launched.
Several Communities are founded , like the one in Vila Real,
in 1930, and at the same time marranos were being
admitted as members of the Israeli Community in Porto.
Some people lied about being marranos due to material
interests. Nevertheless, they were discovered and expelled
from the community. After 1935 the Administration decided
that to be admitted in the Community as new members
people had to prove their Jewish origin and had to prove
their moral behaviour, as well.
Picture 9. The book “Obra do resgate”
(Source: Barros Basto’s family file).

10. With the change of the regime in the thirties (establishment
of the military dictatorship), the military began to be
persecuted by the army and they began driving him away
from the Oporto in an attempt to take him away from the
Synagogue and the Community.
In 1937, Barros Basto was judged by the Board of the Army
Discipline and he was removed from the military institution
because he was accused of participating in ceremonies of
circumcision (in Hebrew brit milá) which was then considered
immoral.
An allegation of homosexuality was made anonymously, long
before (December 1934 and again in the course of the year
1935) but such report came to be considered unproven by
unanimity in civilian and military courts during Dictatorship.
Picture 10. Barros Bastos
(Source: Barros Basto’s family files).

11. The Synagogue started to be built in 1929 when
they got the first funds (the generous donation
of 5,000 pounds of the Kadoorie family from
Hong Kong), and it was completed in 1937 (to
be opened in January 1938).
This is the headquarters of the Jewish
Community of Porto and it is still used for
religious purposes.
Once away from the Army Barros Basto
continued to help hundreds of Jews who
escaped from the World War II and the
Holocaust.
Pictures 11 and 12. The building of
the Synagogue and the Synagogue
in 1938
(Source: Barros Basto’s family
files).

12. Recently the Israeli Community in Porto
signed a protocol with the Holocaust
Memorial Museum in the United States in
order to provide it with thousands of
documents and records of individual
refugees, who, thanks to Barros Basto’s
help, were able to rebuild their lives back
again from Oporto.
Picture 13. Group of refugees at the entrance of
the Synagogue in Porto
(Source: Barros Basto’s family files).

13. Barros Basto died in 1961 and was buried in
Amarante, his birthplace, according to his desire,
and wearing the uniform with which he had always
served his country.
On his deathbed he said that one day justice would
prevail. However, justice was done in 2012, over 50
years after his death, and after relentless
intervention of his granddaughter, Isabel Lopes.
Thus, in February 2012 it was approved a first
recommendation by the Republic Assembly for the
reestablishment of the good name of Barros Basto
and the responsibility of the New State regime for
the persecution he was victim of.
In July 2012, it was approved the Resolution of the
Republic Assembly no. 119/2012 that reintegrates
Captain Barros Basto symbolically in the Army.
Picture 14. Resolution of the Republic Assembly no.
119/2012 – Recommendation to reintegrate Captain
Barros Basto symbolically in the Army.