Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (; Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh) (18 December 1887 – 8 March 1961) was a Portuguese military officer and writer, who published several works related to Judaism. He was an important Jewish leader and one of the people who established the Jewish Community in Porto and assisted the construction of the Kadoorie Synagogue, the largest synagogue in the Iberian Peninsula. Furthermore, he helped the return of Crypto-Jews to the Jewish people and, during World War II, helped Jewish refugees escape the Holocaust.
Life and work
When Barros Basto was still young his dying grandfather revealed to him that he had Jewish ancestors. His family had not kept the Jewish precepts and so he became aware of the existence of Jews in Portugal only in 1904; the year he read a newspaper article referring to the inauguration of the synagogue Shaaré Tikva, in Lisbon.
Years later, he joined the army, and when ordered to attend a course at the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa (Technical School of Lisbon), the young Barros Basto went to the synagogue of the city in an attempt to be admitted there. The leaders of the synagogue refused him permission but Barros Basto was undeterred.
When the Republic was established in 1910 Barros Bastos was the one who raised the Republican flag in the city of Porto.
During the First World War, as a lieutenant of the army he commanded a battalion of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in the front of Flanders. For his acts of bravery and honor on the battlefield he was awarded medals and promoted to captain.
Barros Basto was self-taught, and after learning Hebrew he lived for a while in Morocco where he began a formal process of conversion to Judaism (known in Hebrew as Giur). This process completed when he was circumcised in Tangier and later subjected to a rabbinical court (Beit Din). After which he changed his name to Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh.
Back in Lisbon, he married Lea Israel Montero Azancot, of the Jewish Community of Lisbon, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He also had several grandchildren and great-grandchildren; his granddaughter, Isabel Ferreira Lopes, is the current vice president of the Jewish Community of Porto. He is also great-granduncle of the actress Daniela Ruah.
In 1921 he returned to Porto with his wife. At that time Barros Basto realized that there were fewer than twenty Ashkenazi Jews living in the city. As there wasn’t a synagogue in Porto these Jews were not organized and had to travel to Lisbon for religious purposes whenever necessary.
Upon learning that reality he began to think about building a synagogue and took initiative in 1923, by officially registering the Jewish Community of the Porto and the Israelite Theological Center in the City Council of Porto.
The current building of the synagogue was built years later but the community was organized and rented a house on the street Elias Garcia, which started to function as a synagogue. As time went on, more and more people started to appear in the synagogue. They said they were descendants of Jews forced to convert in the 15th century and claimed to maintain alive yet some Jewish practices and rituals, in the secrecy of their homes. These people, the crypto-Jews, began to participate in religious services.
In 1927, he founded and directed a Portuguese Jewish newspaper called Ha-Lapid.
The claims of the crypto-Jews were proved true by Barros Basto and the committee of London, who found that they did not lie about their origins since they proved to still keep prayers to Hashem and respect the Sabbath as their ancestors. It should also be noted that on the Act n. º 68 Directorate (Maâmad) of the Jewish Community of Porto it was written that anyone who could "absolutely prove their Jewish origin." would be admitted into the congregation.
This occurrence sparked Barros Basto’s interest, who therefore, decided to visit frequently the villages and towns of the Trás os Montes and Beiras regions, looking for more people interested in returning to Judaism. This measure gained the attention of some people, especially some Jewish communities, as is the case of the Community of Portuguese Jews in London, who created the "Portuguese Marranos Committee", an organization dedicated to help people who wanted to return to Judaism.
With the change of regime in the 1930s, Barros Basto was associated with the opposition, and was soon being chased by the army. He started to be placed in locations farther away from Porto, in an attempt to push him away from the Synagogue and the Community.