Sao Tome - chapter three

Third Chapter: The Big Woman from the Island

The journey in Africa deepens and reveals unexpected layers: meeting with the most admired woman in the state of Sao Tome and Principe, the national poet of the island, who finds that Jewish blood is flowing in her veins, leading me to two tombs of Jews in the "Crocodile Island", and to the distant history, to the story of the Jews forced, under the pressure of the Inquisition in Portugal, to be baptized into Christianity.

The meeting with the island's great poet, Alda Espirito Santo, was held at the Writers' Association she runs, not far from our hotel, in a beautiful little Portuguese building overlooking the Pacific Coast.

A young man greeted us and directed us into a modestly furnished room: one fairly large table with unstressed chairs around it, several other small tables scattered around the room, very simple bookshelves with a fair amount of books. We dare and open the windows to allow easier breathing, as the days here are very hot and humid.

After a few minutes, a striking, 70-year-old woman came into the room with her gray-and-white hair pulled back, a huge smile drawn to her lips, and her gaze filled with joy and wisdom. A warm wind blows from it. The external appearance does not interest her. Alda Espirito Santo sits down at her table and we start talking.

She knows we are from Israel, and before starting a conversation, she tells us very confidently, as she instructs her arm: "Jewish blood is flowing in my veins". We look at her amazed and wait for an explanation. Alda tells us briefly that in the 15th century when the Portuguese discovered the island and called it "Crocodile Island" (to teach you that it was dangerous to tread on the island's land ...), the Portuguese king Joao II sent about 2,000 Jewish children to the island to baptize them to Christians. After the hardships they passed through this wild place, there were probably left about 600 children alive, and the blood of these Jews mixed with the blood of the locals, Africans brought as slaves mainly from Angola and Mozambique, to serve the Portuguese gentlemen who ruled the island.

Alda tells us that a few years ago; a conference was held on the island of Sao Tome to which several Israeli researchers arrived. They found that in the Christian cemetery, near the fence, two Moroccan Jews who arrived at the island in the late 19th century were buried and lived here. She recommends us to visit their grave.

These things are very exciting and we decide that this is exactly what we will do tomorrow, drive to the cemetery and look for the grave of these two Jews.

Before we left, Alda instructed the young man who welcomed us to give us the materials about the conference she told us about - written material and some photographs. She also gave me a poet book by a local poet.

Alda gets up from the chair (hardly enough because of her age and weight) and escorts us out. From this beautiful home balcony, she waves a hand to us, and a huge smile falls on her face.

Felisa and I walk towards the hotel. The Atlantic Ocean is on our left, a few feet from the sidewalk on which we walk. It is dusk and this primary beauty always accompanies us. We are both excited and thrilled by the encounter with this great woman who radiates tremendous power. It is clear to us that we have only learned the edge of the story that lies behind her colorful personality.

Only after returning to Israel did we learn fascinating details about her: Alda was born in 1926 in Sao Tome, studied in Portugal and had to quit her studies for political and economic reasons.

Her mother, who was a freedom fighter, sat in the Portuguese prison on the island for her political activities. The old prison is now the island's national museum. The mother's picture is on the wall in a special room in the museum, and either side is pictures of tortured slaves. This is a flaw in the history of the Portuguese that remains here and cannot be removed. 

We learned that Alda was very connected to local politics: she served as Minister of Education and Culture from 1975-1978. Minister of Communications and Culture from 1978-1980, and from 1980-1991 she was the first Speaker of Parliament and enacted the Election Law (Sao Tome and Principe got their independence In 1975 after the colonial war ended, and Portugal old Empire became a state within the European Commonwealth).

Alda Espirito Santo wrote the anthem of Sao Tome and Principe, A long anthem that every little boy can sing by heart.

Today, Alda serves as general secretary of the Writers and Poets Association of Sao Tome and Principe, and in her work, she is involved in all social-cultural activities on the island.

The next afternoon we ask the driver to take us to the cemetery. The place is on a hill overlooking the city and the Atlantic Ocean. We search the cemetery office and find a man there willing to accompany us "on this" quest for the Jewish graves. At the end of the cemetery, near the fence, he instructs us with his hand on two tombs, adjacent to each other, covered with lush vegetation.

Together with this nice man, we capture the weeds, and thus we are exposed to two tombstones with a Hebrew inscription: "Here lies Abraham Cohen and here lies Abraham Gabay ...." Indeed it is very exciting.

A few days ago I spoke with Inacio Steinhardt, a Portuguese Jew living in Israel for many years, a journalist and scientist, who is the head of the Israel-Portugal Friendship Association. I told him about the encounter with the island's great poet, and her words that Jewish blood was flowing through her veins. Inacio wondered at the meaning of this statement. He knew the story of the lost children, saying that the most faithful source of what was known about these children was found in the book "Os Baptisados em Pé" ("Baptized in Standing"), by the late Elias Lippiner. Lippiner's son lives in Israel and I should try to talk to him since he has some copies of the book in his hands.

In a phone conversation I had with Gadi, Elias Lippiner's son, it became clear to me that his father was one of the two people who attended the conference about which the Alda told me. When Elias, his father, was about 80, he went to the conference. On the occasion of the trip, He was debating whether to get all the vaccines needed to get there, Gadi told me. When we were about to meet, I told him that I had a booklet given to me by the poet Alda, containing a photograph of an old man kneeling before a grave. Gadi said that when he will see the photo he will know if it was indeed his father because he remembered exactly what clothes he had traveled to this unknown island.

Elias Lippiner emigrated from Europe to Brazil and from there to Israel. He was a lawyer by profession and motivated to investigate the issue of Portuguese Jews who were scattered around the world. Among his many studies (he wrote 24 books!), He also dealt with the story of these 2,000 children who came to Sao Tome Island.

This book, which was the last he wrote, Elias was not alive to see it published. He had died shortly before. This book is a kind of protest, and Lipiner fights with his last powers to get it published.

The title itself contains the protest: "Baptized in Standing" (Baptisados ​​em Pé), the title of the book, was a nickname for the Jews who were baptized into Christianity as adults, and not as infants, as was the practice of Christianity, and were thus ridiculed by the Inquisition. Lipiner insisted that on the cover of the book there will be a picture of Jesus' baptism, suggesting that Jesus was also baptized in standing.

At a meeting in the garden of Gadi Lipiner's home in Jerusalem, with a clear mountain air blowing around the table, we try to compare a colorful picture of his father with the blurry picture in a booklet given to me by Alda Espirito Santo in Sao Tome. Gadi is very excited. He claims that the photographic position, in which the man kneels at the Jewish graves, is not typical of his father, but everything else is remarkably similar, and although the picture in the photograph I brought with me is quite blurry, we almost "decide" that this is probably his father's photo.

Lipiner searched and found written evidence of the two thousand children who arrived in Sao Tome and collected his research in a special chapter in the book "Baptized in Standing": a Portuguese Jewish writer who was exiled to 15th-century Italy, whose name is Osak describes the monstrous cruelty of King Joao II who wanted to expand the Portuguese Empire and add more colonies to it. At that time, the Portuguese discovered the deserted island of Sao Tome, an island inhabited by many prey animals. No natives were found at the site, and there 2,000 Jewish children were forcibly sent to make them Christians. There is evidence that speaks of 5,000 children, others about 900, and the exact number cannot be known.

"The dreadful hour has come," said one of the found written testimonies, "in which small children were brutally taken from their mothers' arms, and holding on to their children to prevent them from being cut off. Little children under the age of 10 screamed reaching the heart of the sky, screams of farewell from parents being so innocent and young".

"Finally, these innocent children came to this deserted place, Sao Tome, thrown out of the sea and left them there. There were big lizards that swallowed everything. If not into the munching of these animals they swallowed, most children died of starvation."

In another testimony from that time, it was stated that the Portuguese king, Don Joao II was punished for his brutal act and his only son, Alfonso, died when he fell off a horse leaving his father without a son. When he was on his deathbed, delirious, his cry was heard: "Take these children from here".
In addition to this group of Jewish children, who, as mentioned, most of them did not survive, slaves were brought to the island from other parts of the African continent, such as Angola and Mozambique. The blood of the Jewish children, who also served as slaves, mingled with the years in the blood of Africans.

Other interesting evidence indicates Jewish customs that have been preserved in certain families on the island to this day. Jewish surnames were also preserved. Very interesting evidence tells of Lupo de Leao, who was imprisoned in a prison in Lisbon and begged the Inquisitors, in 1581, to send him to the island of Sao Tome. He thought he could be released from the pressure of the Holy Ministry, the Inquisition Court in those years in Lisbon

(Note: All of the above is my free translation from Portuguese, from the extensive collection of testimonials Elias Lipiner collected in his book - m.r)

We will not expand the cruel processes taken by the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal (until the end of the 18th century!), as this is the historian's business.

In Portugal, many Jews remained who converted and became what is known as "New Christians." In the city of Belmonte, Portugal, you can still find descendants of them. In recent years, quite a few of these families have returned to Judaism, but we are still witnessing interesting phenomena in families where there is one son who is a Catholic priest and another son who became a Jew again. Many studies have been conducted on this topic, and those interested are invited to take a look at the history books and the city's internet site.

Where does the writing of this journal lead me? It seems to me that preoccupation with other Jews is not random. In recent years, I have been researching Jose Saramago's books and learned a lot about Portugal and the Portuguese. I live in the sense of a person who is in an inner journey, to his/her roots, to his/her former incarnations (if anyone desires to believe it).

I was sent to give a course to supervisors and administrators in Sao Tome's education system and here I find myself on this unknown island leaning on the grave of two Jews and weeding the weeds to read the inscription - in Hebrew and Portuguese - on the tombstone.

The wonderful ways of every journey...