Masorti Movement Holds First Portugal Conversion
Image by getty images
For the first time in the history of the Masorti movement, its rabbis performed conversions to Judaism in Portugal.
The two conversions were performed in the Portuguese capital at a beit din, or rabbinical court, of three judges, who on April 26 recognized Juliana Fernandes da Silva and her life partner, Edgard Pimentel, as Jews.
Though the Masorti movement – the smallest of the three major streams of Judaism – has performed conversions of several Portuguese Jews, this was the first time that the rabbinical court convened in Portugal, according to Rabbi Chaim Weiner of London, who oversaw the proceedings of the court.
Usually European Masorti converts travel to London, he added, but this time it was decided to hold the court in Lisbon because several rabbis were already in Portugal on a month-long study trip of the country’s Jewish heritage.
Da Silva, a 26-year-old Brazilian mathematician who grew up in a Catholic home, took a ritual dip in the mikvah following the court’s decision. She and Pimentel – a Brazilian born to an atheist father and a Catholic, non-observant mother – were welcomed at a reception the following day into Lisbon’s small Masorti community of a few dozen people.
Also officiating at the beit din was Rabbi Jules Harlow of Lisbon’s Masorti synagogue, Ohel Jacob. He and his wife, Navah Harlow, guided the Brazilian couple through two years of studies for the conversion, Pimentel said.
Spain’s Masorti community is much larger than Portugal’s and has several hundred members, many of them Argentinians, Weiner said.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
