Checking the Calendar

Portugal is a Catholic country.

You don't have to look very hard to see it. Churches anchor towns and neighborhoods. Saints appear on tiles and façades. Monasteries and convents are among the places we visit. Religious festivals spill into the streets. And underneath all of that are still older layers: places that were once mosques or synagogues, churches built on earlier sacred spaces, and traces of communities that have been here for centuries.

When I'm planning a tour in Portugal, that landscape is almost second nature to me. But this week, with Rosh Hashanah beginning while we're traveling here, I found myself thinking about something I hadn't really considered before: what does Jewish life in Portugal look like today, and how do we make room for it within a group experience?

Not how do you celebrate Rosh Hashanah? That's a different question. This was much more practical, and perhaps more interesting. What is available here? Where is the community? And, more specifically for us, what is available in Cascais, where we would actually be when the holiday began?

I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with Lisbon's Jewish community. Some years ago, we visited the Shaaré Tikvah synagogue with a group of expats and were welcomed inside. I remember being fascinated by the building, its history, and particularly the fact that it sits back from the street, a legacy of a time when a non-Catholic house of worship could not openly face the street.

It was a memorable visit, but it was also my only real intersection with Lisbon's Jewish community. So I started looking again.

Portugal's Jewish population today is small, but Jewish history here is anything but. Jewish communities existed on the Iberian Peninsula long before Portugal itself. That history includes extraordinary periods of coexistence and contribution, but also expulsion, forced conversion, persecution, and the Inquisition.

What is easier to overlook is that Jewish Portugal isn't only history.

There are Jewish communities here now. Shaaré Tikvah is not simply a historic building to visit. It is home to the Jewish Community of Lisbon, with services, celebrations, education, and community life. There are other Jewish communities in Portugal as well, each part of a religious landscape that is much more varied than the churches and monasteries most visitors encounter might suggest.

But finding the community was only part of the question.

There is no single answer to what someone wants or needs from a religious observance while traveling. For one person, attending services might be essential. Someone else might want a festive meal, a familiar tradition, a few quiet moments, or simply some space in the day.

The point isn't to decide for someone what observing a holiday ought to look like. It's to ask.

That turned out to be an important reminder for me. I could research synagogues, schedules, transportation, and what might be available in Cascais. But good hospitality isn't necessarily about producing the most elaborate solution. Sometimes what someone wants is something much simpler and more personal. And sometimes the logistics you were quietly worrying about turn out not to be an issue at all. Phew.

Because when we travel together, we create a community too.

A group of people arrives from different places, with different backgrounds, traditions, habits, and reasons for being there. For ten days or a week, we eat together, ride together, learn together, make music or make things together, and gradually become our own slightly odd temporary family. I love watching that happen.

But joining that temporary community shouldn't require anyone to leave the other parts of themselves at home.

Sometimes hospitality means changing a dinner time or leaving a little space in the schedule. Sometimes it means helping someone find a local community. Sometimes it means doing much less than you initially thought would be necessary. And sometimes it simply means asking the question before assuming you know the answer.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what we can show people in Portugal. This has reminded me that sometimes the people traveling with us cause me to look again at a place I thought I knew.

A synagogue I had visited as a fascinating part of Lisbon's history becomes part of a living community. A familiar region reveals another layer. A country whose religious landscape can appear overwhelmingly Catholic becomes a little more complicated, a little more interesting, and a little more complete.

And our own temporary community becomes a little more thoughtful too.

Not because we all celebrate the same things. Because we make room for the things that matter to one another.