This outline of Jewish history in Portugal focuses primarily on the period from the 12th - 17th centuries, and includes a brief account of the events that produced the phenomenon of crypto-Jews.

By Pinhas Bibelnik of Hebrew University, Jerusalem. In the capital city of Mexico, New Spain, in 1649 the Inquisition convicted 108 New Christians of secretly practising Judaism; thirteen of this number, according to another source, were burnt alive at the stake ('auto da fe', literally meaning 'act of faith'). Bibelnik asks who were these New Christians or crypto-Jews? What were their beliefs? In their Jewish life they had little guidance, no Jewish books. Nevertheless, Bibelnik finds evidence of Jewish customs.

This page provides links to articles about conversos or crypto-Jews.

Dr. Seth Ward discusses, among other issues, Jewish life in Spain, asks, "Who Were the Conversos?", and explains the term crypto-Judaism, finally discussing the place of the latter in the New World.

This site provides several articles concerning crypto-Jews or conversos who settled in the American Southwest as long ago, it is believed, as the 16th century. Crypto-Jews is a term referring usually to those Spanish and Portuguese Jews who ostensibly converted to Catholicism at about the time of the Spanish Edict of Expulsion (of Jews) in 1492, but secretly maintained their religious traditions. This historical background is discussed in the articles provided.

Eduardo Mayone Dias of the University of California, Los Angeles, recounts that a few years after the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, King Manuel of Portugal also gave Portuguese Jews the same choice of conversion or expulsion. Although the Jews remaining in Portugal were told that their beliefs and practices would not be investigated for twenty years, the inquisition was finally established in the country in 1536. Dias, though skipping the next 200 years, provides a brief discussion of the impact upon Jewish faith and practices of these events to recent times, specifically the concealment by Jews of their religious and cultural heritage.