Tetuan | In the Time of the Jews

Purim on the 14th of the month of Adar in the Jewish calendar, is the only holiday that celebrates an event that occurred in the Diaspora, outside the Land of Israel, in Persia at the time of Mordecai (Mordehai) and Queen Esther. The grand vizier, Amman, decreed the death of all Jews of the vast Persian empire, and thanks to the intervention of the Jewish queen, the king allowed Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, to organize the defense of the Jews, who thus escaped destruction and death.

Several Jewish communities have the custom to celebrate in a second Purim, local events, when they were miraculously spared from extermination.

In the year 5338, in the Jewish calendar, the second day of Elul corresponded to August 4, 1578, a sad date in Portugal’s history – because of the defeat of the Portuguese troops in Alcazarquivir, and the mysterious disappearance of the young King Sebastian.

Local tradition tells that, when the Portuguese army reached the outskirts of Alcazarquivir (the great fortress), two “anusim” (Jews violently converted to Christianity), which were part of the Portuguese army, went in secret to see the Jews of the city. They disclosed to the Jews, that the Christian king, before leaving for Africa, went to a church in Lisbon, and made a solemn oath that if he won the battle, he would force all the Jews of those lands to convert to Christianity, such as D. Manuel I had done to the entire Jewish population of Portugal.

The Jews of Alcazarquivir were stricken with panic. However, the rabbis asked them to make a day of fasting and prayer, imploring God to save them from that cruel decision, as did Queen Esther in her time.

In the course of the battle, the Moorish King Mulay Mohammed, who had been dethroned by his uncle Abd-al-Malik (Mulay Ally), and made an alliance with the Portuguese King, expecting to regain the throne, was deadly wounded.

Shortly after that Abd -al- Malik himself also perished, according to legend, by the effects of intoxication. However, the Moors of Alcazarquivir, in collusion with the Jewish doctor of the king, decided to hide the fact of his death and pursued the battle under the command of the brother of the sovereign.

Soon after, unexpectedly, the Christian king disappeared, probably wounded in battle. In the absence of a commander, the Portuguese who had already murmured against the many tactical errors of D. Sebastian, lost orientation and dispersed. Thousands felt under the swords of the Moors; others were imprisoned.

Alcazarquivir did not fall, and D. Sebastian disappeared never to be seen again. For hundreds of years, people believed that he would return in a foggy morning… or maybe not.

This battle became known in history as the “Battle of the Three Kings” in memory of the kings who perished there.

Then the rabbis of Morocco ruled that, from that year on and forever, from generation to generation; those communities would celebrate, on the second day of Rosh Hodesh Elul, a feast of Purim, with joy, rest from work, and offer of alms to the poor (Mishloah manot laEvionim ).

All this was written in a Megillah, a hand-written roll of parchment, of which there are still some copies in Israel, and probably in other countries. They are read in the synagogues and in the family, in the day they call “Purim Sebastiano ” or “Purim Sebastian YSV ” (short for ” let his name and memory be erased for ever”).

This is what the Jews of Tangier and Tetuan celebrate every year on that date.

The historic episode of the defeat of Don Sebastian at Alcácer Quibir is also largely referred to by some Jewish chroniclers, such as Yossef Hacohen, in his work “Emek Habahah” (Valley of Tears), where he inputs Sebastian’s defeat to a divine punishment for the forced conversion of Portuguese Jews in 1497; and also by Imanuel Aboab in his “Nomologia relatng the failure of the Portuguese with King D. John II’s exile of Jewish children to the island of St. Thomas, which Samuel Usque called the “Island of the Lizards” because it was inhabited by crocodiles.

In this picture, the first part of the Meguila di Sebastian.