According to a statement from the organizers, on May 3, viewers around the world will be able to watch the Santuário da Esperança illuminations and the Campo de S. Francisco traditional evening event; on May 4, viewers will be able to see the Procissão da Mudança and the outdoor Mass; and on May 5, the traditional main procession will be broadcast live online.

To watch the festivities on the Internet viewers need to log on to http://www.santo-cristo.com. Last year over 14,000 people watched the festivities online.  RTP/Açores will also broadcast the festivities live and online  >> Emissão 1 >>  Emissão 2 >> For details click here.

Nearly 400 years old, the Festas do Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres [Holy Feast of Christ of the Miracles] , is the largest religious celebration of the Azores. The tradition attracts many thousands of Azorean pilgrims returning home for the festivities.

According to the 2013 Festivities Program, distinguished guests for the religious event include Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, MA. A former Bishop of Fall River, MA, O’Malley was elevated to the cardinalate in 2006. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, commonly known as the Capuchins. O’Malley was considered a contender to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned on February 28, 2013.

Festas do Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres >> Website >> Internet >>

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updated 05/03/13

The International Latino Book Awards, allowed this year, for the first time, entries from Portuguese authors in either English or Portuguese language. The award recognizes Power of the Spirit as a finalist in the category of Best Non-Fiction – Multi-Author.

The awards ceremony will be held the evening of May 30, 2013, at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City. This year, the awards are sponsored by Libros Publishing; Scholastic; the University of Arizona Press and Arte Publico Press.

Each year the International Latino Book Awards are held during Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in the USA. Last year the Awards honored 148 publishers and authors.

All finalists’ books will be displayed at a BookExpo booth. This event is attended by thousands of booksellers and the display is designed to help expose the winning titles to these booksellers. This year each individual finalist author and publisher will be filmed in an interview. These videos will be used to help promote the winning titles. There will be a special limited edition surprise gift for all finalists.

We congratulate the authors: Joe Machado, José Rodrigues and Ferreira Moreno, as well as all contributor volunteers who worked so hard on this project. We also thank our volunteer members who are sacrificing their personal time, working with parishes and at social events to make Power of the Spirit known throughout California.

To learn more about PHPC and how to acquire Power of the Spirit, visit  www.PortugueseBooks.Org

Source: PHPC

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• Book: “Power of the Spirit” Portuguese Triumphs and Hardships – Review
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The production, by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, drew over 15 million viewers, last Sunday, making it the History Channel’s best day ever.

The 10-hour miniseries will be featured every Sunday, over the next several weeks, at 8 p.m., EST, culminating on Easter Sunday.  Jesus Christ (Diogo Morgado) won’t be front and center until the third week.

For co-producer and veteran actress, Roma Downey, who plays the role of Mary, “We looked long and we looked hard for our leading man,” she said and added, “We wanted somebody who was charismatic, dynamic, and could portray strength and vulnerability at the same time. We had a few actors in mind, but we still didn’t feel like we had found the perfect character. Then we saw a tape of a Portuguese actor named Diogo Morgado, and we arranged very quickly to meet with him. He came for a meeting at our home [in Malibu, Calif.] and we were so eager to set eyes on this actor. Mark and I were peeping out the glass window as he walked up the garden path, and we just knew. I turned to my husband and said, ‘There he is! There’s our Jesus. We found him. We found Jesus!’”

Diogo Morgado, 33, is a Portuguese screen and theater actor, who has been working since the age of 15. Raised a Catholic, Morgado got his break in 1998 when he became a series regular on Terra Mãe , a popular Portuguese soap opera.

In 2013, in addition to The Bible , Morgado will work in the United States in two other projects: independent films Red Butterfly and Born to Race: Fast Track.

“Jesus is definitely the most complete and complex figure of mankind; he’s just someone who belongs to millions and billions of families all around the world,” Morgado told Entertainment Tonight. “Just [given] the chance [to play him], I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to try to just give an example of my Jesus,” he said.

Watch the whole interview for Entertainment Tonigh here

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At about one-hour drive north of Lisbon, the town of Tomar occupies a special place in the history of Portugal and the world.

Built inside the walls of the Castle of Tomar, one of the finest examples of 12th Century military architecture, the original medieval town was established on land granted by the first King of Portugal, D. Afonso Henriques, in 1159, to the Order of the Knights Templar which foundation dates back to around 1118.

The Knights Templar had played a crucial role in Portugal attaining independence in 1139. Around 1190, they had already established their headquarters in the Castle of Tomar, the largest and best preserved European Templar settlement still standing today, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

Convent of Christ in Tomar.

Inside its walls, visitors will find the Convent of Christ, a combination of a fortified citadel and monastery. It was built in 1160 under the orders of Gualdim Pais, the fourth Grand Master of the Knights Templar in Portugal.

The imposing building holds a majestic octagonal round temple with a chapel – a magnificent charola [rotunda] – inspired by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. There, in the rotunda, the Knights Templar were initiated and are said to have attended Mass on horseback.

In 1160, Gualdim Pais also built the Church of Santa Maria do Olival, the first Templar church in Tomar, which became his burial place and the burial place for more than  20 Knights Templar. Four centuries later, Santa Maria do Olival served as the architectural model for the first churches built on the Azores and Madeira islands in the early stages of Portugal’s overseas expansion.

In 1312, King Philip IV, the Fair of France ordered the arrests and executions of the Knights Templar in his country and, in 1314, Pope Clement V dissolved the Order throughout Europe.

In Portugal, however, King D. Dinis persuaded Pope John XXII, in 1319, to allow fugitive Templars to join the newly created Order of Christ, [Ordem de Cristo], which was unique to Portugal. Soon after, the Castle of Tomar and the Convent of Christ would become a safe haven and last stronghold of the Knights Templar in Europe.

Retaining their original Templar structure and character, the members of Order of Christ became known as Knights of Christ [Cavaleiros de Cristo].  In 1357, they reclaimed the Covent of Christ as their headquarters and held enormous power in Portugal from the 14^th to 16th century. In effect, the Knights of Christ and their Order of Christ planned and financed the Portuguese Age of Discoveries, placing the town of Tomar and its people at the center of Portugal’s overseas expansion.

Prince Henry, the Navigator.

In 1418, Prince Henry, the Navigator, the founder of the famed Sagres naval center, near Lagos, Algarve, became the Governor of the Order of Christ until his death in 1460. He brought to Tomar and Sagres some of the leading European geographers, cartographers, astronomers, and mathematicians to assist him planning the maritime expeditions. Under his direction, Sagres, located about 268 miles away from Tomar, became a leading research and development center dedicated to the science of navigation, equipped with libraries, an astronomical observatory and ship-building facilities.

It was under Prince Henry’s leadership, and endowed with the vast Templar’s wealth, that the Order of Christ carried out Portugal’s 15^th century maritime explorations. In Sagres, the Portuguese developed the caravela, a new type of long-distance vessel that could sail in both shallow and ocean waters and deeply into the wind at great speed.

Some of the most renowned Portuguese navigators were associated with the Order of Christ and received training at the Sagres expeditionary center, namely Vasco da Gama, Pedro Álvares Cabral, Bartolomeu Dias, Gil Eanes, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan who reached all corners of the world.

Displaying the Cross of Christ on their sails, many like them departed from Sagres toward the unknown, eyeing new lands for discovery. Their first maritime success was the discovery of the island of Porto Santo, in 1418, by explorers João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, followed by Madeira island in 1419.  Soon after, between 1427 and 1432, the nine islands of the Azores were found by the Knight of Christ Gonçalo Velho Cabral.

Found uninhabited, the Order of Christ proceeded to populate the islands – Madeira in 1425 and the Azores in 1445. The first settlers were mostly Christians from the Tomar area, the surrounding Estremadura province, and from the southern provinces of Alentejo and Algarve.  Among them there were also Jews, Moors and some foreigners from France, Flanders and Italy.

It has been documented that the first person known to be born on the Island of São Miguel, Azores, was Nuno Gonçalo, the son of Vaz Botelho Gonçalo from Tomar, whose wife had arrived pregnant, in 1444, among the very first settlers on the island.

Tomar ”Festa dos Tabuleiros” (Festival of Trays).

Those pioneers brought traditions with them to the new found islands.  For example, from Tomar the settlers brought to the Azores the Holy Ghost Festival [Festa dos Espírito Santo] still celebrated in Tomar as Festa dos Tabuleiros [Festival of Trays]. In both communities today, the Holy Ghost Festival follows similar rituals, including the Holy Ghost coronation parade and the sharing of meat, bread and wine with the poor.

To honor their connection with Tomar and the Order of Christ, the actual flag of Madeira (image) and Madeira’s coat of arms (image) still display the Knights of Christ cross. For the same reason, the official coat of arms of the Azores (image) also displays the emblematic cross.

Prince Henry the Navigator died in 1460, but his work continued in Tomar and at the Sagres naval center under the direction of his nephew, King John II of Portugal, the next Master of the Order of Christ. During his reign,  Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope reaching India, in 1498, and other Portuguese explorers sailed far and beyond all the way through Asia.

Convent of Christ. A view of the chapel. The “charola” (rotunda) was embelished in the 16th century with paintings commissioned by King Manuel I.

The next ruler, King Manuel I of Portugal, also played a relevant role in Tomar and Sagres. He was appointed Master of the Order of Christ in 1484 and became King of Portugal in 1492. Under his reign, in 1500 Knight of Christ, Pedro Álvares Cabral, reached Brazil.

D. Manuel I ordered the addition of a new nave to the structure of the Convent of Christ, built in the Manueline architectural style, including the famous Chapter Window [Janela do Capítulo] (image). He also ordered the construction of the Church of São João Baptista, built in gothic style, ouside the walls the original Castle of Tomar, in the very center of the town.

His successor, King D. João III of Portugal, was deeply committed to the maritime explorations as well. In 1557, he ordered an addition to the Convent of Christ, a new cloister ( image ) considered one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture in Portugal.  A very devout Christian, King D. João III, the Pious, demilitarized the Order of Christ, which had become a quasi-secular military body, reverting it to its religious mission. During his rule, after reaching China, the first Portuguese missionaries and merchants arrived in Japan in 1543. Upon his dead, in 1557, the Portuguese empire had spanned about 4 million square kilometers across the globe.

Another royal figure associated with Tomar was King Philip II of Spain, who was acclaimed and crowned King Philip I of Portugal at the Convent of Christ, in 1581, and recognized as such by the Cortes of Tomar. The event established the Iberian Union which lasted from 1581 to 1640, a transient period in the history of both countries, when Portugal lost its independence to Spain.

In 1593, King Philip I of Portugal  (Philip II of Spain), commissioned the construction of the Aqueduct of Pegões  [Aquaduto dos Pegões] to supply water to the Covent of Christ. The colossal structure, which took 20 years to complete, is comprised of 180 gothic shaped arches, extending for over four miles.(image)

With time, the ancient Castle of Tomar and its legendary Convent of Christ lost prominence as the Order of Christ also declined in power and purpose. In 1834, the Portuguese State secularized the Order of Christ and classified the site as a National Monument in 1907. The Castle of Tomar and the Convent of Christ became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.

This PAJ report was possible courtesy of: Turismo de Portugal, SATA International, Hotel Mundial (Lisbon), Hotel dos Templários (Tomar) and Hotel Vila Galé (Lagos).

Take a virtual 3D tour of the Convent of Christ here

Convent of Christ Official Website here

Tomar  >>Wikipedia >>

Travelers find more information here
___________
(*) Carolina Matos is the founder and editor of Portuguese American Journal online. She was the Editor–in-Chief for The Portuguese American Journal, in print, from 1985 to 1995. From 1995 to 2010, she was a consultant for Lisbon based Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD). She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts and a Master’s Degree in English and Education from Brown University and holds a Doctorate in Education from Lesley University. She is also an adjunct professor at Lesley University where she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses. In 2004, Carolina Matos was honored with the Comenda da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique presented by Jorge Sampaio, President of Portugal.

Mix traditional Eastern European Klezmer tunes such as bulgaryas, freylaks, horas, and niguns with strains of samba, salsa, and tango, and you have Jewish music, South American style.  Add Berber sounds from the deserts, new-jazz inflected original compositions from Israel and Brooklyn, a cumbia style dance-band, and Brazilian choirs and you are hearing Kleztival 2012, São Paulo’s third annual Klezmer music event.

For a foreigner, Brazil evokes rich tropical hardwoods, suave melodies, and Afro-percussion.  You sense magic the moment you say the word.  Though full of enchantment, Kleztival is no whimsy or wild idea.  Now in its third and most expansive annual edition, it is the delicious and ripe fruit of two dedicated Paulistanos, Edy and Nicole Borger who also lead São Paulo’s Jewish Music Institute http://www.imjbrasil.com.br/.

Assisting them as festival musical director is New Yorker Frank London, the omnipresent and brilliant kingpin of all things world-Klezmer, trumpet player, composer, bandleader, and arranger.  This year’s 9-day (October 12 to 21) marathon of concerts, workshops, conferences, and free, evening rush-hour subway station shows was performed by a diverse roster of 34 musicians from 15 different countries with an emphasis on South America.  Here for the listener is a Klez-logue travel bag filled with impressions and sounds, a voyager’s collection of observations, anecdotes, conversations, all Kleztival treasures discovered in São Paulo. 

Klezmer

For those interested in word origins, Klezmer comes from Yiddish origins meaning literally “instruments of song.”  It is broadly used to refer to the popular musical traditions of Eastern Europe’s Ashkenazy Jews.  Defining Klezmer repertory and roots with exactness is a complex task demanding elaborate discussion.  Among its enduring forces is a capacity to integrate and combine with a spectrum of musical traditions wherever Jewish diaspora is found:  the Balkans, Eastern and Iberian Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas.

Mirroring the mobility of its populations, Jewish music has proved aesthetically flexible enough to mix with whatever it meets:  swing, jazz, tango, ska, punk, rock, electro, reggae, rap, and a variety of Latin styles.  This is exactly what is on display in such a gathering as Kleztival where the very notion of Klezmer is a synonym for celebration, variety, and sharing, a constantly renewing work in progress where notions of traditional purity are of lesser importance.  Klezmer’s “instruments of song” provide its players a seemingly infinite source to adapt, revisit, arrange, and embroider repertory, a life pulse that renders this music uniquely alive and immediate.

This is where Kleztival begins in its brilliant initiative that allows musicians from Canada, the United States, England, and Israel to perform alongside players from Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, and of course Brazil.  São Paulo, the most populous urban center in South America and the region’s economic and cultural center with a rich history of Jewish culture is the perfect and elegant host for the event.

Sé subway station, downtown São Paulo

Dancing klezmer music in the subway station…

The scene is a vast hall inside the bustling city center subway during evening rush hour.  Estação Sé in Brazil’s business capital is the underground transit heart where thousands hustle up and down stairs and scurry through tunnels to intersecting blue and red train lines stretching across the city.  Thanks to Kleztival, instead of the typical transit race, at 6pm Estação Sé is transformed into an improvised dance party with a Latin-Klezmer pulse.  Streams of travelers trickle to a near halt, kidnapped by the sounds of the irresistible Orquesta Kef from Buenos Aires.  Complete strangers who normally avoid the slightest glance are holding hands and turning in festive circles and groups of four.  Experienced dancers show the simple steps to anyone willing to try as the choreographic chain begins snaking through the crowd.  Miraculously, at Sé during the busiest moment of the day, travelers take time for a dance or to listen, clap hands, tap feet, or swing in place.  A semi-circle of spectators grows into a vast pedestrian traffic jam while a cluster of camera phones held aloft records the moment.  Rush hour is unofficially suspended, perhaps subverted.  The Argentinians romp through an up-tempo freylaks, Buenos Aires style.  The Kef players all wear matching green ball caps, vests, and shirts.  The three front men jump on cue and hit the ground together to finish the tune on a downbeat to bravos and whoops of approval echoing through Estação Sé.  A few spectators reluctantly amble off to continue their transit.

Following a three-song medley, Edy Borger, the festival director frequently in charge of MC duties, takes the microphone and names Kef’s musicians, explaining to the crowd they’ve just heard Jewish music from Argentina.  He summarizes the Kleztival schedule and gives details about where to attend upcoming events.  Meanwhile, Mexico City’s Shtetl Klezmer sets up.  As Borger steps from the portable stage, bandleader-violinist Abraham Rechthand airs a long, unmistakably Klezmer, plaint that introduces part two of the subway set.  A single draw of the violin bow, such as Rechthand is a master, shows how deftly Klezmer can switch moods.  As if also strung with vibrating strings, the crowd responds immediately to the slow, nostalgic pulse and sways dramatically side to side.  Sé subway station is not only the city’s transit heart, for a Klezmer hour it is also the vessel for its receptive soul.

The Babel-Ashkenaz project at SESC Pompeia. From the left: Erez Mounk (Israel), Frank London (USA), Yair Dalal (Israel), Beny Zekhry (Brasil). Photo by Andre Nehmad.

Friday, 3 pm, São Paulo State Music School, Largo General Osório. — Duets and Ideas.

A collection of young music students wander into a stuffy room designated for a workshop/conference about Jewish music in collaboration with Kleztival.  The average audience age might be 17, and while they fidget, joke, and text message, music director Frank London who is leading the session looks them over, spying the various instrument cases in an attempt to size up the group.  On an elevated stage behind him, oud player Yair Dalal from Israel, a studious, reserved man dressed in white, tunes his exotic instrument with delicacy and concentration.

“What do you guys play?”  Frank casts around to no one in particular.  The students offer shy, fragmented responses, and it turns out most of them know little about Klezmer, but following the introduction they are keen on participating.  Brazilian violinist Daniel Stein who now lives and studies in the United States provides simultaneous translation as necessary for the 90-minute exchange.

“Let’s play,” London suggests to Dalal, waving his trumpet in one hand and the mute in the other.  Yaer nods solemnly, smiles then introduces a slow and gentle Bedouin motif, one of the essential references for the music he plays.  The result is the first trumpet-oud duet I have ever heard.  Still more astounding than the pairing of instruments is how softly the trumpet sings, an almost hidden background melody, as if their duet was a wandering desert walk in which partners converse alone in a remote expanse.  How could such a seemingly mismatched pair of instruments fit together so exquisitely?

Paolina and Merlin Shepherd, from the UK, at the SESC Santos. Photo by Edy Borger.

“It is always about listening,” London suggests after a long silence ends their piece.  “How will you become a bigger musician otherwise?  You have to adapt to the other.”  He couldn’t have provided a more poignant example of complicity and adaptation.  That too, it appears, could be another meaning for Klezmer.

Following discussion and commentary, Dalal and London play a traditional Arabic motif called a Dulab, usually used as an introduction, and the conference public is invited to sing an imitation.

“Now listen really carefully” London instructs, repeating the phrase with Dalal.  The students repeat.  “Now listen to every single detail and sing again,” he insists, closing his eyes and straining as if to indicate just how much more there is to hear.  A long silence follows the repetition.

“You always have to know where you are and where you are going,” London says with regards to the listening/imitation exercise.  “Written music means nothing if you don’t know what it is supposed to sound like in advance.”  The example makes his point unmistakeably clear.

“Musicians have the most important job in the world,” Yaer Dalal offers.  “They are the best positioned to spread culture and peace…to construct a bridge across differences.”  Dalal, a peace activist and contributor to dialogue between Jews and Arabs, is a stunning example of such bridgework.

“Passion is the most important thing you need to play music,” says London.

“To open your heart is the important thing,’ Yaer answers.

Clube Atlético Paulistano Concert

Trio in Canto, Beyond the Pale, Daniel Stein, Gustavo Bulgach, Trio Shelvá, and Frank London.  Detailed security clearance is required to enter the Clube Atlético, São Paulo’s chic, oldest, and most exclusive, private social club and high-end sports complex.  Within its vast, walled-compound the visitor finds a collection of full-sized athletic fields, tennis courts, training rooms, a heart-shaped swimming pool with a garden bar and restaurant, a movie house, billiard salon, and a performing theatre where one of Kleztival’s 2012 concerts will take place.

Between sound check and concert, the musicians in Toronto’s Beyond the Pale drink beer and relax at the poolside bar.  Led by mandolin player Eric Stein, also the director of Toronto’s Ashkenaz festival of music, art, and culture, Beyond the Pale boasts an eclectic line-up of world-class musicians.  In their multiple Kleztival appearances they showcase original and traditional repertory, freely exploring musical forms and impressive solo improvisation that reveal influences from jazz, contemporary, Dixieland, folk and a variety of ethnic music sources.  They call their take ‘Euro-folk fusion’ and offer listeners intriguing interpretations on Klezmer repertory.

The Clube Atlético audience is subdued and slightly formal, not exactly ready to dance in the aisles as they did at the SESC Pompei concert, but still warmly enthusiastic.  Shelvá, a trio of young performers from Israel now living in Brooklyn, plays original compositions and fresh arrangements of traditional Israeli repertory.  Though Shelvá means “serenity” they groove with a decidedly jazz touch that highlights Assaf Gleizner’s piano and melodica solos.

Festival finale at the Hebraica. Photo by Andre Nehmad.

Nicole Borger, Kleztival’s co-director, is an engaging singer.  Her group Klezmer 4 performs rare pieces of Jewish repertory as well as original pieces.  During the concert they showcase pieces from their excellent Klezmeriando recording

“My grandfather taught me this song,” clarinettist Gustavo Bulgach tells the audience before launching into Yoshke, Yoshke, a Klezmer classic.  Born and raised in the Jewish community of Buenos Aires, the fine clarinettist later moved to Los Angeles where he pursues a multi-faceted career.  Laying claim to heritage is Bulgach’s passion and is reflected in his current project about rediscovering the Jewish tango.  A showman on stage and an animated talker about all subjects, Gustavo performed solos, duos with violinist Daniel Stein, and ensemble pieces including the premier of a piece composed for the festival.  As if tagging on a wall in L.A., Bulgach summarizes, “Klezmer is the soundtrack of the diaspora.”

Trio In Canto, a São Paulo’s women’s vocal ensemble, is inspired by the work of American composer, singer, arranger, and poet Debbie Friedman.  At the Clube Atelético they perform 5 songs in English, Yiddish, Portuguese, and Hebrew from traditional repertory.  They are animated story tellers, and their delicate and playful voices combine to entertain with songs of love, lament, and, devotion.

After the Gala concert

Jokes and conversation fill the festival shuttle-bus following the gala concert at Hebraica, São Paulo’s Jewish cultural center.  With the exception of a Sunday mid-day concert, the festival is over.  Many musicians will go directly to the airport during the night to catch international flights, the musical diaspora once again heading home.

Abraham Rechtman says it is the first time his Shtetl Klezmer group has been invited outside of Mexico.  Their playing is perhaps the most traditional, coherent with an artistic mandate to perform in a style dating from the first half of the twentieth century.

“I don’t really know how to do this touring business,” Rechtman admits.  “In Mexico City we do all the Bar Mitzvahs, the weddings, and parties because people know us, but I am a trained classical musician, so I also play in string quartets, orchestras, and other groups.”  Having clearly become a festival favourite, his quartet received resounding applause when they walked on stage earlier in the evening his quartet received resounding applause when they walked on stage.  Rechtman introduced a piece he wrote called “Hommage,” dedicated to all the musicians who died in the Holocaust.

“I am a traditionalist, you know.  I don’t like fooling around much with this beautiful repertory, but I love listening to what everyone does with it as long as they make great music.”

Also during the gala, violinist Daniel Stein and Gustavo Bulgach paraded down Hebraica’s centre aisle playing Yoshke, Yoshke then continued a medley of pieces with a mixed ensemble on stage.  Polina Shephard the brilliant Russian singer from England sang dramatic piano-clarinet duos with Merlin Shephard then led a song and dance finale which included all the festival musicians and a dancing Hebraica audience.

When the shuttle-bus stops in front of a restaurant, the exuberant concert mood has trailed the Kleztival family across town as it files in to celebrate.

Festival finale at the SESC Pompeia. Photo by Andre Nehmad.

A taxi, somewhere in São Paulo

It is closer to daybreak than to midnight when we say last goodbyes and obrigados.  Some festival partiers appear hesitant to leave the people and event that has so intimately joined everyone.  Michael Alpert and British clarinettist Merlin Shepherd sing together at a table, heads touching.  Nearby, players from Uruguay’s Klezmeron Orkestra from Montevideo have a guitar and are singing songs in Spanish.  Out on the sidewalk I have no idea where I am in the city or which direction leads home.  Everyone says that it is very dangerous to wander São Paulo’s streets late at night, but I feel protected by all the music, celebration, food, and cachaça, Brazil’s sugar cane alcohol.

The taxi driver speeds through Sao Paulo’s downtown streets at 85 miles an hour, the city flashing by in bright streaks.  He runs three successive red lights, but I don’t pay much attention because I am remembering the Kef Orquesta’s guitarist jumping insistently as if hitting his head on high ceilings was part of a Buenos Aires dance.   I remember Frank London telling students that perhaps Chopin and Pixinguinha, the famous black Brazilian popular composer, are really connected, and I wonder what he meant.  I am searching for ways to understand Klezmer’s charm.

Two days later I find a key in the sprawling Rio de Janeiro slum of Rocinha when I meet Flavio “Peniel.”  He was cutting keys at his sidewalk stand when I noticed the Star of David on his sign announcing that he was a locksmith.  Flavio tells me he is the only Jew living in Rocinha, and his business card reads Peniel-locksmith.  Peniel, is a reference from Genesis where after Jacob wrestles with God he names the place Peniel, “the face of God.”  Flavio, standing on a corner in his vast ghetto, wears a broad smile, blue ball cap, and work apron. o

“I am a Shalom locksmith.  I play Jewish music,” he answers when I ask about his work with locks.  He verifies a key he has just cut then ads with his kindly glance, “My group is called “Braz-El”.  We play psalm lyrics with a Brazilian Samba beat.  It’s beautiful.  You have to hear it.”  I do.

Visit São Paulo’s Institute of Jewish Music and Kleztival here

Some Youtube Kleztival scenes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZHCw5xUGY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE_7HMMPBFE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDsX0FUJpd4&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnEveJqTPOk&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0d7bH71ZIo&feature=relmfu

Links for Kleztival 2012 groups mentioned in this article:

-Trio Shelvá, www.trioshelvá.com

-Frank London, www.franklondon.com

-Michael Alpert, www.michaelalpert.org

-Nicole Borger/Klezmer 4 www.nicoleborger.com.br

-Klezmeron Orkuestra, www.facebook.com/KlezmeronOrkestra

-Polina Sherpherd, www.polinashepherd.co.uk

-Merlin Shepherd, www.merlinshepherd.co.uk

-Yaer Dalal, www.yairdalal.com

-Orquesta Kef, Buenos Aires, www.orquestakef.com.ar/

-Gustavo Bulgach, www.klezmerjuice.com

-Beyond the Pale, Toronto www.beyondthepale.net

(*) Richard Simas is a free-lance writer with a background in literature and the performing arts. He contributes regularly to contemporary arts and literary review in Europe and in North America, including Canada’s Journey Prize anthology and a winner of a Fiddlehead Fiction Prize. He is a frequent collaborator for Musicworks magazine in Toronto.

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Titled, “Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan: Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods” the exhibition will be on exclusive display, from February 16 through June 2, 2013.  On Monday, February 18, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., the public is invited to join Boston College community members at a free opening reception with a special evening viewing at the Museum.

The exhibition comprises seventy works; central to the narrative are seven magnificent folding screens that illustrate Japanese encounters with visiting Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries. Admision is free.

The display examines cultural exchanges during this period, through the movement of goods on Portuguese ships that took over four years of travel roundtrip—from Portugal to Japan, with extended stopovers in India and China.  The viewer will travel through the complex landscape of religious ideas, customs, and artistic styles that typified the nanban period as an age of exploration.

“Boston College, one of the premier Jesuit universities in the world, is pleased to collaborate with the government of Portugal and Portuguese institutions on this groundbreaking exhibition examining—through the display of magnificent nanban works of art—the cultural, spiritual, and artistic exchange among Portuguese, Jesuits, and Japanese in the ‘Age of Exploration,’” said McMullen Museum Director and Professor of Art History, Nancy Netzer, in a press release announcement.

Examples of the objects depicted on the screens also will be on display: elaborately decorated Japanese furniture, lacquerware, and military equipment; Indian and Chinese ceramics, textiles, and furniture; and paintings by Jesuit-trained Japanese artists. In addition to rare European and Japanese maps, the artifacts and screens tell a fuller story than that documented in contemporary texts.

According to Consul General of Portugal in Boston, Paulo Cunha Alves, “Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan will be a one-of-a-kind exhibition in America. The beauty and the rareness of the works of art displayed, some of them coming from public and private collections in Portugal, will attract the attention of both scholars and admirers of Asian art. The exhibition explores the profound bonds between commerce and religion at the time of the first globalization promoted by merchants, missionaries, and noblemen at the service of the Portuguese Crown,” he said in a press release announcement.

Organizers selected iconic works from institutions and private collections in the US, including the Peabody Essex Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Lenders from Portugal include the Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, Oporto; Museu de São Roque, Lisbon; Diocese de Coimbra, Sé Nova; and Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon, and many private collectors.

The exhibition has been underwritten by Boston College, the Patrons of the McMullen Museum, Leslie and Peter Ciampi, the Camões Institute of Cooperation and Language/Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, the Consulate General of Portugal in Boston, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, with additional support from the Luso-American Development Foundation.

Hours and Tours

The McMullen Museum is located in Devlin Hall 101, on BC’s Chestnut Hill campus, 140 Commonwealth Avenue. Hours during this exhibition: Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Closed: March 29, 31; April 15; May 27. Docent-led tours from 2–2:45 p.m. Sundays from February 24 through June 2, 2013. Tours also arranged upon request by calling 617.552.8587. For directions, parking and program information, call 617.552.8100 or visit www.bc.edu/artmuseum.

Source: BC McMullen Museum  >>

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The measure would make Rhode Island the 10th state to allow gay marriage. Rhode Island is the only state in New England that has not legalized same-sex marriage.

Paiva Weed, a Democrat, has also indicated she does not support the Defense of Marriage Act, which would ask voters to decide whether the state constitution should define marriage as “a lawful union between one man and one woman.” She voted for civil unions on June 29, 2011.

In a recent interview for RI WJAR-TV’s “10 News Conference,” Paiva Weed said, “There’s a whole group of people who are genuinely struggling with this issue […] The debate and the discussion in the Senate will be very real, and neither I nor anybody else … really knows what the final outcome of that will be.”

While Democrats hold a 32-5 majority in Rhode Island’s upper chamber, Democrat Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed (Newport), Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio (Providence) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Michael McCaffrey (Warwick) are all opposed to gay marriage.

Public opinion in Rhode Island favors allowing gay marriage. A recent poll last September showed 56% of Rhode Island voters support legalization, while 36% are opposed and 8% are unsure.

M. Teresa Paiva Weed was re-elected in 2013, on a 37-1 vote, for a third term as RI Senate President. First elected to the Rhode Island Senate in 1992, she was first elected in January 2009 to serve as President of the Senate, the first woman in Rhode Island ‘s history to serve in this capacity. She had served as Chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee in 1997 and Senate Majority Leader in 2004.

Read more >> NYT >> NPR >>

Teresa Paiva Weed >> official website >> Wiki >>

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updated 01/29/13

In the 1800s, only the courageous crossed the Atlantic’s expanse from Portugal and the Azores, to face a dangerous sea and the badlands of California in order to reach a new life in the United States. Now, the highly anticipated book Power of the Spirit, Joe Machado editor, is the latest from Portuguese Heritage Publications of California (PHPC). Contributors include, Ferreira Moreno, Dolores Greenslate, Al Dutra, Miguel Ávila, Adrienne Alston, José do Couto Rodrigues and Lúcia Soares Ávila.

The book pays homage to these original pioneer immigrants, laymen and women and the clergy, for their tenacity, teamwork and tenacious spirit, which paved the way for future generations to travel to and settle in California. The first of its kind, the book explores the experience of these settlers through the eyes of the settlers themselves as well as their priests, detailing their triumphs and hardships.

Several years in the making, this book was compiled and written after years of careful research and will be a welcome addition to the growing body of the evolving historical information about California and the role of Portuguese immigrants on the West Coast.

It was the early spiritual leaders who “demonstrated a keen sensitivity towards the ethnic diversity of their flock.” To counsel and guide Portuguese settlers, “priests and nuns from the Azores islands and Portugal’s mainland” were invited “to minister.” These brave people were men and women of the cloth, sponsored by the church who, “dedicated themselves to building places of worship and ministering in Portuguese, to the spiritual well being of their parishioners”  Most, who were from the Azorean islands, a group who were” longing for the ability to worship in their own language.”

Strength and spiritual efforts combined to form core communities responsible for both churches and establishing these early towns. And it was the priests who provided much needed guidance and spiritual support with which inspired and led these first travelers to build communities throughout the vast new Western territory of California.

Excerpt

“Over one hundred native Portuguese and Portuguese American priests have for more than a hundred and forty years attended to their parishioner countrymen in California.

The first missionaries to arrive on the Pacific coast were obviously Spanish. It is not unthinkable, however, that a few among them might have been Portuguese. To mention one instance, in 1587 Fathers Francisco Nogueira and Rufino, members of a Spanish expedition under the command of Pedro de Unamuno, landed on Californian shores. Nogueira is a Portuguese surname and Rufino could be either Spanish or Portuguese. After a few days, Unamuno sailed off to Acapulco, and there is no indication that either of the two priests was left ashore.

Years went by, and in 1814 the first documented Portuguese immigrant jumped ship in Monterey. Between that year and the Gold Rush, only some two dozen Portuguese were recorded as living in California. None of them was a priest. It is a well known fact that a feverish migration to California occurred during the period from 1849 to 1855. Only an extremely scant number of the Portuguese who arrived, however, engaged in gold prospecting. Rather than that, these new migrants, mainly born in the Azores Islands, developed a huge network of supply to the forty-niners. Activities included growing vegetables, raising chickens and cows, opening boarding houses and restaurants, and operating flat bottom barges to ferry merchandise in the San Francisco Bay.”

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PHPC books are printed in English, Portuguese, and bilingual editions and encompass a variety of topics: the Heritage Collection documents research about major aspects of the history of the Portuguese experience in California; the Fiction Collection contains works of fiction, poetry or essays inspired by the lives and experiences of the Portuguese in California. The Pioneer Collection presents works in the English language dealing with the lives of Portuguese pioneers in California. The Colecção Décima Ilha consists of works, in either poetry or prose in the Portuguese language, by Portuguese residents of California.  Additional Publications include books of instructional value, focused on aiding the assimilation of Portuguese immigrants into American society. The Prospector’s Library is a repository of research works, white papers, academic theses and dissertations related to, or about the Portuguese immigrant presence in California. PHPC also offers original and reproduced music CDs by Portuguese musicians.

The Portuguese Heritage Publications of California (PHPC) is a non-profit educational organization and boutique publisher, specializing in the research, preservation and distribution of vanishing memories. Historical details and current relevant events about the Portuguese presence in California.

PHPC is accepting advance orders for a deluxe limited edition to be released December 2012. Pre-order here.

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(*) Millicent Borges Accardi is a contributor to the Portuguese American Journal. She is a Portuguese-American poet, the author of three books: Injuring Eternity (World Nouveau), Woman on a Shaky Bridge (Finishing Line Press chapbook), and Only More So (forthcoming from Salmon Press, Ireland). She has received literary fellowships from Canto Mundo, the National Endowment for the Arts, and California Arts Council. Last fall, she was a visiting poet at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, VA. Millicent lives in Topanga, CA. Follow her on Twitter @TopangaHippie

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Tourism is one of Portugal’s most important sectors, with revenues last year totaling Euro8.1 billion, according to Bank of Portugal figures.

“We have expectations of growth, despite the difficult economic situation we’re experiencing,” the director of marketing at Portugal’s Tourism Institute, António Padeira, told Lusa. “Two thirds of tourism activity in Portugal comes from foreign markets.”

Tourism officials are trying to target new customers with a range of new products aimed at different market segments.

For example, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism is to fly to India later this month to promote Portugal as a destination, Padeira said, noting that each year 20 million of Indians travel abroad. Tourism officials have also been to China three times this year.

But the institute is not neglecting Portugal’s traditional markets, Padeira stressed.

He was speaking at a workshop on religious tourism in Fátima, the site of Portugal’s most important Catholic shrine, visited by five million people each year.

Local officials at the event told Lusa that much more could be done to take advantage of the shrine’s tourism potential, given that it is in the municipality of Ourém, just an hour’s drive north of Lisbon.

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Related Post

• Travel: Tourists from the US are the fastest group visiting – Portugal

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General Information on Portugal: Official Name: Portuguese Republic; Government Type: Parliamentary democracy; Population: 10,642,836; Area: 92,391 sq. km., including the Azores and Madeira Islands; slightly smaller than Indiana; Languages: Portuguese; Literacy: Total population: 93.3%; Male: 95.5%; Female: 91.3%; Year of Independence: 1143.

The event opens Saturday morning with the traditional “bodo de leite” event. The Holy Ghost parade will take place on Sunday, on South Main Street, with the participation of over one hundred Holy Ghost guilds and about 20 marching bands. On Monday, August 27, the festival ends with a festive banquet.

About 150,000 people, from all over the United States and abroad, are expected to gather at Kennedy Park, over the weekend to enjoy Portuguese food, including the famous Azorean sweet bread and “malassadas.” The festival also features folk dance, bazaars, live music and entertainment. Admission is free.

Carlos César, outgoing President of the Regional Government the Azores, will be the guest of honor. César, who has presided to the Azorean government for the last 16 years, is not a candidate in the upcoming regional elections to be held October 14.

Holy Ghost symbol

The festival  is held every year on the last weekend of August. The event has become one of the largest Portuguese celebrations in the United States and the one of the largest ethnic festivals in New England.

The Festival is also celebrated by all the Azorean communities around the world. The tradition is based on the celebration of Pentecost, observed by the Catholic and Protestant churches, which marks the establishment of the Christian era.

The Holy Ghost festival originated in the 14th Century by Queen Saint Isabel of Portugal (1271-1336). She was canonized a Catholic saint in 1625, by Pope Urban VIII. Her feast day is July 8. She is celebrated for her work as a peacemaker and her devotion to the poor. She established orphanages and provided shelter for the homeless.

Fall River (MA), with a total population of 95,072, is home to the largest Portuguese American community (43.9%) in the United States, many claiming  Azorean origin, mostly from São Miguel Island.

The Portuguese connection with Fall River started in mid-19th Century when waves of Azorean immigrants settled in the city, looking for job opportunities in the textile mills.

paj.cm/updated 08/13/12

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When Jeffrey S. Bennett, a professor of sociology and religious studies, first visited Portugal in 1996, quite by accident he made a stop at Fátima on July 13. It was the seventy-ninth anniversary of one of the most celebrated Marian apparitions there. That weekend, more than a quarter million Portuguese pilgrims were gathering at the shrine located about 40 miles north of Lisbon.

An American with no religious training or inclination, Bennet didn’t know what to make of it until he decided to investigate the phenomenon. It led to “When the Sun Danced: Myth, Miracles, and Modernity in Early Twentieth-Century Portugal” a book he has admitted he had no intention to write. The book was published in 2012, by the Virginia University Press.

Written in bits and pieces, to research the book Bennett went back and forth to Portugal, having spent in total two years in the country. While there, he made frequent visits to Fátima and conducted numerous interviews with believers and non-believes, including a number of influential people who inspired and assisted him throughout the process.

In 1917, near the town of Fátima, Portugal, three young shepherds reported having witnessed six apparitions of the Virgin Mary. At the time, reportedly 70,000 to 100,000 people gathering at the place had witnessed some solar abnormal activity which they interpreted to be the occurrence of a miracle as prophesized by the shepherds.

Bennett’s research provides the first book-length analysis, in English, of the cult of the Virgin of Fátima in the context of Portugal’s 20^th century political and religious history. It explains how the apparitions, witnessed by the three young shepherds, were constructed and transformed to influence the course of Portugal’s modern history.

The Marian apparitions, he has realized, influenced not only the nation’s political, social and cultural life between 1918 and 1935, but affected the course of events which lead to political transformation of the country in the late 1920’s, when Portugal transitioned from republicanism and democracy to the Salazar dictatorship and the Estado Novo regime.

Fátima in 1917, he concludes, emerged as the new collective life-affirming narrative of the nation’s messianic collective memory, a phenomenon that characterized the Portuguese experience of modernity as expressed by Fernando Pessoa, Portugal’s quintessential modernist poet.

Pessoa, Bennett notes, originally a supporter of republicanism, eventually became a dissident of the liberal regime and defender of the dictatorship.  His book, entitled Portugal, completed in 1934, shows how his views had changed radically. “Pessoa’s example helps make clear how a new wave of anti-materialism though, accompanied by a powerful desire for order and unity, helped give birth to the political authoritarianism and religious nationalism in Portugal during the 1920s to 1930s,” he writes.

As Bennett further remarks, “Fátima probably would not have been possible without republicanism, a movement that attracted a following for many of the same reasons Fátima visions did, including the fact it too was organized around wish-dreams of personal and national revitalization.”

Bennett has also concluded that Fátima, as a collective phenomenon, still plays a role in the tensions that continue to shape the social and political realities of today’s Portugal and beyond.

The Fátima narrative, he notes, has become a world phenomenon popular among American Catholics. Exact replicas of the Chapel of the Apparitions at Fátima have been built in places such as Washington and New Jersey, in the United States, where, through the Internet and radio, the Fatima story is still being broadcast, reaching thousands each week.

Currently, Jeffrey S. Bennett is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at The University of Missouri, Kansas City.

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Carolina Matos is the founder and editor of Portuguese American Journal online.
She was the Editor–in-Chief for The Portuguese American Journal, in print, from 1985 to 1995.
From 1995 to 2010, she was a consultant for Lisbon based Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD). She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts and a Master’s Degree in English and Education from Brown University and holds a Doctorate in Education from Lesley University. She is also an adjunct professor at Lesley University where she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses. In 2004, Carolina Matos was honored with the Comenda da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique presented by Jorge Sampaio, President of Portugal.

Data from a 2011 survey was compared with data from 1999 showing that the total number of Portuguese citizens describing themselves as Catholic had fallen from 86.9% to 79.5%, a 7.4% drop in the decade.

The decline represents not only those expressing a faith other than Catholic, doubling from 2.7% in 1999 to 5.7% last year, but also by a rise from 8.2% to 14.2% in those declaring no faith.

Those expressing “’no opinion” rose from 1.7% to 3.2%, with self-professed agnostics going up from 1.7% to 2.2%, while atheists amounted to 4.1% of Portuguese citizens against 2.7% in 1999.

The last decade has been more promising for Protestant and Evangelical churches that saw their followers rise from 0.3% to 2.8%.

The reasons presented for change broke down into personal conviction, disagreement with religious practices and preferring individual autonomy as regards religious practice.

In turn, when questioned further, a third of individuals in the non-faith category said they did not agree with the rules handed down by any doctrine or faith, while 22% could not agree with the moral rules and 12% pointing to the bad example set by members of the clergy.

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General Information on Portugal

Official Name: Portuguese Republic
Capital: Lisbon (Current local time)
Government Type: Parliamentary democracy
Population: 10,642,836
Area: 92,391 sq. km., including the Azores and Madeira Islands; slightly smaller than Indiana
Languages: Portuguese
Literacy: Total population: 93.3%; Male: 95.5%; Female: 91.3%
Year of Independence: 1143

Born in Santa Eufémia de Prazins, Guimarães, mainland Portugal, D. Manuel was elevated to the position along with 21 other new cardinals, including Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the head Archdiocese of New York,  and Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore.

At the Vatican since 2009, D. Manuel was appointment by Benedict XVI, in January 2012, Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary. Previously, he had served as Vatican’s secretary of the Congregation for Bishops.

The College of Cardinals is best known for forming the assembly that names the new pope. With the new appointments, there are 125 cardinals eligible to vote for a new pope and 214 total cardinals. Cardinals who are over 80 years old are not allowed to vote.

Ordained priest in 1961 he was elevated to bishop in 1985. He is the third Portuguese appointed cardinal with, namely, Cardinal Emeritus D. José Saraiva Martins and D. José Policarpo the Cardinal of Lisbon.

In 1985 D. Manuel Monteiro de Castro was appointed archbishop and pro-nuncio to the countries in the West Indies that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, including The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, and apostolic delegate for the other territories, such as the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Netherlands Antilles.

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