The Building at 33 Rua do Carmo is an historical building located at 33 Rua do Carmo,

Funchal Funchal () is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Madeira, Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it the sixth largest city in Portugal. Because of ...

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

. It has been suggested that it could have been projected to be a

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

History

Jews from Morocco arrived in 1819 and set themselves up in the cloth and wine trades. The Abudarham family (originally from Gibraltar) were involved in the

Madeira wine Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Portuguese Madeira Islands, off the coast of Africa. Madeira is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own, as an apéritif, to sweet wines usually consumed ...

industry from the early 1860s onwards. Rabbi David Zaguri became its spiritual leader in 1857. Another period of immigration followed in the 20th century, with the arrival of refugees from the First and Second World Wars. The Jewish community also grew due to the

Evacuation of the Gibraltarian civilian population during World War II The British Government's decision to enforce a mass evacuation of the civilian population during the Second World War from the Crown colony of Gibraltar, in order to increase the strength of The Rock with more British Armed Forces personnel, mea ...

to Madeira, which included a number of Jews, some of which are buried in the

Jewish Cemetery of Funchal The Jewish Cemetery of Funchal is a Jewish cemetery located in Rua do Lazareto, Funchal, Madeira. Sephardi Jews as well as Ashkenazi Jews are buried here. History The cemetery was built in 1851, the last burial took place in 1976. Jews from M ...

Tito Benady Mesod Benady MBE (born 17 July 1930) is a Gibraltarian historian of Sephardic Jewish descent. He currently lives in Grendon, Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom. Benady was involved in local politics during the seventies; he contested the 1 ...

, a historian on Gibraltar Jewry, noted that when some 200 Jews from

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

were evacuated as non combatants to Funchal, Madeira, at the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, they found a Jewish cemetery that belonged to the Abudarham family. The same family after whom the Abudarham Synagogue in Gibraltar was named. The

located in nearby Rua do Lazareto, was built in 1851, the last burial took place in 1976.

References

{{- Buildings and structures in Funchal Jews and Judaism in Madeira Synagogues in Portugal Moroccan diaspora in Europe Moroccan-Jewish diaspora Gibraltarian diaspora