What You Need to Know Before Booking a Jewish Tour in Portugal

If you are planning a Jewish heritage tour of Lisbon, there are a few things worth knowing before you book. Not all Jewish tours in Portugal are the same, the history is more complicated than most guides tell you, and one important myth about Lisbon’s Jewish quarter has been repeated so many times that even guidebooks treat it as fact.

We want to set the record straight.

Portugal’s Only Licensed Jewish Guide

Today, roughly 5,000 affiliated Jews live in Portugal. Professor Paolo Scheffer is the only authorized, licensed tour guide in Portugal who is Jewish. He is also a direct descendant of Portuguese Jews who survived in secret for centuries after the forced conversions of the 15th century — a crypto-Jew whose family preserved their identity through generations of persecution and concealment. Paolo has completed the required years of academic study and the rigorous examinations to earn his official guide license, and he works exclusively with Lisbon Explorer.

This combination — personal ancestry, academic credentials, and official licensing — is unique in Portugal. Only officially licensed guides have permission to take visitors inside the sites where the country’s most important Judaic artifacts are held. Ancient inscriptions, rare Hebrew texts, medieval documents — Paolo has access to these because of his credentials, and he understands their significance because this history is his own family’s story. Unlicensed guides simply cannot take you to see them, and in most cases, they are unaware these artifacts exist.

Paolo also has two protégés, Daniel and Liliana, who are the only other guides he trusts to lead a Jewish tour when he is unavailable. Together, the three of them represent in our opinion, the best team in Portugal qualified to show visitors the full depth of Jewish Lisbon and provide some of the most comprehensive multi-day Jewish heritage tours through Portugal.

Important: Professor Paolo Scheffer cannot be reserved through third-party reseller websites like GetYourGuide or Viator. To book Paolo, Daniel, or Liliana, you must contact Lisbon Explorer directly.

Why the Guide You Choose Matters

There are other guides in Lisbon who offer Jewish tours. Some are members of the local Jewish community, though most are not descendants of Portugal’s original Sephardi Jews. Without academic qualifications in Sephardic history and without an official license, these guides cannot visit the most significant Judaic artifacts, ancient sites, and inscriptions that Paolo, Daniel, and Liliana access on their tours.

There is also a significant accuracy problem. Portugal spent 48 years under the Salazar dictatorship, which ended with the Carnation Revolution in 1974. During that time, the regime spread propaganda that distorted Portuguese history and many of those distortions have become embedded in what people believe to be true. Unlicensed guides, guidebooks, and even schoolteachers still repeat myths from the Salazar era — not out of malice, but because these stories have been accepted as fact for decades.

Common claims you will hear misrepresented on other Jewish tours that are not true:

• Portugal’s complicated neutrality in World War II
• The Inquisition did not persecute Jews in Portugal
• That Portugal has no modern history of antisemitism

A qualified guide with real academic training will give you the true story, even when it is uncomfortable.

We also want to make travelers aware that some unlicensed guides are using the name “Paulo” online, which has created confusion with Professor Paolo Scheffer and attracted his clients. If you are looking for the real Paolo, make sure you are booking Professor Paolo Scheffer through Lisbon Explorer.

The Alfama Jewish Quarter: A Misunderstanding That Won’t Die

This is the single most repeated misconception about Jewish history in Lisbon, and it is time to correct it.

Most Jewish tours in Lisbon take visitors to the Alfama quarter to see a 20th-century street sign that reads “Rua da Judiaria.” Guides will tell you this marks the site of Lisbon’s largest or oldest Jewish quarter. It does not.

The Alfama is the oldest surviving quarter of Lisbon because it withstood the catastrophic earthquake of 1755 better than the rest of the city. Because of its age, many people have assumed that a street called “Street of the Jews” must have been the main Jewish quarter. But assumption is not evidence.

There are at least three other street signs in Lisbon’s historic center that also reference Jewish people, and none of them mark the boundaries of any former Jewish quarter. The city has not yet placed signs indicating where any of its former Jewish quarters actually stood. It is also worth remembering that some street names in old Lisbon were based on nicknames, local characters, or stereotypes — a “Rua da Judiaria” or a “Rua dos Mouros” does not automatically prove a Jewish or Muslim quarter existed on that spot.

No archaeological or historical evidence in the National Archives of Portugal supports the claim that Rua da Judiaria in the Alfama was a Jewish quarter. No systematic survey of the architecture in that block has ever been conducted, and no Portuguese researcher has attempted to verify the century-old assumption using modern archaeological criteria.

What the Historical Record Actually Shows

According to the oldest known and most reliable 14th-century sources, found in the Chelas convent, Lisbon had four main Jewish quarters, or Judiarias, before the forced conversion of Portuguese Jewry at the end of the 15th century:

1. Judiaria da Pedreira — Located between the Bairro Alto and Chiado, with a synagogue documented as early as the 13th century. This is considered Lisbon’s oldest Jewish quarter. Not the Alfama quarter.

2. Judiaria Velha / Grande — The “Old” or “Great” quarter, situated centrally near Rua Nova dos Mercadores and the Church of São Nicolau in the Baixa.

3. Judiaria Pequena — The “Small” quarter, also called Judiaria Nova or Judiaria das Taracenas, located between what is now the Museum of Money (the old Church of São Julião) and the Corpo Santo Church in the Baixa.

4. Judiaria de Alfama — A Jewish quarter did exist somewhere in the Alfama district, but its exact location is unknown. Many archaeologists specializing in Lisbon’s Jewish history suggest it may have been near Bica das Cruzes, where remains of freshwater springs that once flowed are known to exist — not on the street that currently bears the name.

There was also a fifth Jewish area in the Bairro Alto during the mid-15th century, where a handful of important Jewish merchants, courtiers, and sages built estates. This area lasted less than 50 years before the land was confiscated by King João I around 1483. It was never officially designated a Jewish quarter, and its name has not survived.

How the Myth Persists

After the forced conversion of Portuguese Jews at the end of the 15th century, the erasure of Jewish identity was systematic. Synagogues were converted to churches, Hebrew names were changed to Christian names, Hebrew books were outlawed, and street names like “Rua da Judiaria” were often changed to “Rua Nova” — “New Street” — signifying that it was now the street of the Cristãos-Novos, the “New Christians,” as forcibly converted Jews were called in Portugal.

Interestingly, the Alfama’s Rua da Judiaria appears to have kept its name continuously from the 14th century to the present. A plan of the Parish of São João da Praça, drawn shortly after the 1755 earthquake, even refers to this thoroughfare as “Beco das Judiarias” — “Alley of the Jewish Quarters” (plural) — which suggests a passage leading toward several Jewish areas further up the hill, not a quarter in itself on that actual street. This document is available on the National Archives of Torre do Tombo website.

After Portugal’s 2015 Right of Return law, which offered citizenship to descendants of Jews forced out after the 15th century, many Jewish returnees purchased apartments on Rua da Judiaria, believing they were reclaiming a piece of their heritage. A new Jewish Cultural Center established on the street by a returnee has further cemented this belief. Today, the walls of Rua da Judiaria are decorated with Judaica, and tours continue to bring Jewish travelers to this street, telling them it was the largest, oldest, or last Jewish quarter of Lisbon, even though the historical record does not support this claim.

The real history is richer and more complex than one street sign can tell you.

See the Real Jewish History of Lisbon

If you want to understand the true story of Jewish life in Portugal — the medieval quarters, the forced conversions, the Inquisition, the hidden communities that survived for centuries, and the revival happening today — you need a guide who has spent years studying it, who holds an official license, and who can take you to the places and artifacts that tell the real story.

Professor Paolo Scheffer and his team at Lisbon Explorer are the only guides in Portugal who can do this. Book your Jewish tour of Lisbon directly with us.

Lisbon Explorer — LisbonExplorer.com