Afterwards everyone headed for the Hotel De France in Versailles where a nice party took place late into the night.

On behalf of all Bensaudes I wish the newlyweds a lifelong familly happiness !

In a bowl, blend the following ingredients :

• 500 g low-fat white cheese.
• One small pot of creme fraiche.
• One 4 servings bag of instant onion soup with no croutons.

Cover with a plastic microwave foil and store in the fridge. Add a pinch of paprika just before putting on the table. Do not keep more than two days. Enjoy !

In 1936, the cemetery had 133 graves of which 105 names are listed in “Benditcha Sea Vuestra Memoria: Sephardic Jewish Cemeteries in the Caribbean and Eastern North America” by David Mayer Gradwohl. This 29 pages paper is available from the Association for Gravestone Studies. The names are also mentioned in the “Genealogia Hebraica. Portugal e Gibraltar” by Jose Maria Abecassis (ISBN 9729542902).

The International Survey of Jewish Monuments mentions that “the cemetery is at the present time [2000] surrounded by factory buildings and shut out from sight by a wall. The monuments are situated horizontally. It suffers from neglect. Crosses mark some of the graves, a well-known island practice, which purported to serve to keep anti-Jewish rhetoric muted.”

A few weeks ago I found that Claude Bensaude had taken a look at it. His opinion of Abecassis’ work is very low. Horrified by the amount of imprecisions and factual errors he told me he began annotating the book with corrections, but after a dozen pages he gave up discouraged by the amount of corrections needed.

So if you wish to use the Genealogia Hebraica as a source for your genealogical research, be sure to cross it with other independant sources and take it with a grain of salt.

[..] in 1818 [..] the Bensaude family of Morocco came to this volcanic archipelago [..] seeing opportunity in its developing orange-growing industry. They made their fortune trading agricultural products for manufactured goods with England and trading bills of exchange while transporting emigrants to Brazil. In the process, according to Fatima Sequeira Dias, Professor of Economic History at the University of the Azores, they changed the nature of the Azorean economy.

“The Bensaudes had the trade connections that enabled them to link England, Brazil, and Newfoundland with the Azores,” she says. “When they got into the bill of exchange business, that was the beginning of banking in the Azores.” This single Jewish family, she maintains, succeeded in integrating the islands’ economy, establishing a chain of retailers throughout the archipelago who offered imported goods on easy terms, and developing its maritime transport industry. Today a financial empire with international interests, the Bensaudes continue to be the Azores’ chief economic entity. But they are no longer Jewish. Fearful of a Nazis occupation of Portugal, most converted during the Second World War. Vasco Bensaude, the last Jew of the dynasty, died some twenty years ago.

That reminds me that the two following papers by Fatima Sequeira Dias contain rich insights into Bensaude history in the Azores :

• Uma estratégia de sucesso numa economia periférica: a casa Bensaúde e os Açores, 1800-1873, Ponta Delgada, 1993;
• A Fábrica de Tabaco Micaelense: 1866-1995, Ponta Delgada, Fábrica de Tabaco Micaelense, 1995;

Family name  Name           Gender  Birth  Death date
Bensaude     Jais           M       1871   11/09/1929
Bensaude     Rebbeca Ohana  W       1873   16/07/1946

I have no idea who they are nor any knowledge of their contemporary Moroccan Bensaudes. Neither are the people bearing the name of Hassiboni mentioned in these cemetary records. It seems that there is still in Morocco some of genealogical information that we have not yet found…

Jeff Malka from Sephardic Genealogy Resources has put together a short startup guide to Jewish Genealogy in Morocco. Lack of records makes it a tricky field of investigation, but I am sure there are plenty of discoveries to be made. Have fun, and don’t forget to keep us informed about what you find !

Name of Passenger	Residence  	Arrival Birth
Jacob Bensaude  	 	  	1894  	1834
Jose Bensaude  	  	Lisboa, Port. 	1916  	1893
Jose Bensaude  	  	Lisbon, Port. 	1920  	1893
M. Bensaude  	  	  	  	1894  	1865
Maria Bensaude	  	Lisbon, Port.  	1920  	1899
Mathilde Bensaude  	Lisboa, Port.  	1920  	1890
Mrs. M. Bensaude  	  		1894  	1872

Among them, Mathilde Bensaude matches very well the data I already have. The “M. Bensaude” born in 1865 may be the unknown Hiam Bensaude that I found in the 1881 British census. The others look like no-one already identified… Your help is welcome.