Ben-Rosh

by Elvira Azevedo Mea

A biography based on Barros Basto's own autobiographical writings. An officer in the Portuguese army, Barros Basto (1887-1961) was decorated for bravery in World War I, introduced the Scout movement in Portugal, and was active in political life. As a teenager, he learned that his family was of Converso origins; he found his way back to Judaism and converted in Tangiers in 1920, taking the name Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh. He established a synagogue and a Jewish community in Porto and dedicated his life to bringing back the descendants of Conversos such as himself to Judaism, especially in northern Portugal. Based on his own experience, he believed that the Jewish stigma could not be erased by assimilation. In an atmosphere of prevailing prejudices equating Jews with communists, and inter-Jewish quarrels, he was denounced for alleged homosexuality in 1934 and discharged from the army in 1940; during this period his public activity dwindled.