This is the largest synagogue on the Iberian Peninsula, completed in 1938. Its full name, Kadoorie Mekor Haim, includes Hebrew for “source of life.” From the pavement, you can take in the building’s broad, restrained form: it belongs to Porto’s modernist architecture, while its entrance composition carries the ceremonial presence of a synagogue.
The story begins with Captain Artur Barros Basto, a Portuguese army officer who converted to Judaism and became a leading figure in Porto’s Jewish community. In the early 1920s, about twenty Ashkenazi Jewish newcomers in the city had no synagogue and had to go to Lisbon for religious needs. The Porto Israelite Community was formally registered in 1923, and the present building’s construction began in 1929.
The Kadoorie family funded much of the project in memory of Laura Kadoorie, whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors had left Portugal during the Inquisition. Hundreds of refugees crossed this synagogue during the Second World War on journeys toward the United States. Open to visitors since 2012, it remains the home of an Orthodox congregation and a community of around 500 Jews from more than thirty countries.
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