Cape Verde

"Monument of the grave, a pure and righteous man who made himself walk in his purity, modesty and virtue. He, by his donation, exists. With full funds he sought justice. He strengthens all support of the group of the Burial Society. The wise and important Mister Mordechai Auday who went to his rest 2 day in the month of Tibet 5761 of Creation. May his soul be bound in the bond of life."

– translation from Hebrew of inscription on a tombstone in Cape Verde

The story of the Jewish community in Cape Verde is one of greed, slavery and the Portuguese Inquisition. Since the 1460s, when the Portuguese discovered the array of fourteen islands that sit 450 kilometers off the West African coast, they used the archipelago as a fueling station for explorers on their way to conquer the New World, as a stopover terminal for the slave traders, where they could also refuel and "dispose of" weak or objectionable slaves, and as an outpost for Jews that the Inquisition forced to convert to Catholicism under threat of death.

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