The Casa da Vivência Judaica is a modern local museum dedicated to the Jewish and New Christian memory of Gouveia. It was created by the Municipality of Gouveia as part of a wider effort to study, preserve, and present the Jewish heritage of the town and its territory.

Jewish Heritage in Gouveia

The project developed after Gouveia joined the Rede de Judiarias and after historical, archaeological, artistic, and architectural research was carried out across the municipality. Within this framework, the museum brings together evidence connected to medieval Jews, New Christians, the Inquisition, and local forms of Jewish memory.

The house is installed in the historic Casa do Passadiço, a building connected to the old urban fabric between the Bairro da Biqueira and the Bairro do Castelo. Its rehabilitation recovered a historic area of the city and created a cultural space for interpreting Jewish and New Christian heritage in Gouveia.

Museum Collection and Hebrew Lintel

The museum presents this history through documents, archaeological objects, urban references, maps, tables, document replicas, names, and records connected to Jewish life and New Christian memory.

One of its most important pieces is the Hebrew lintel associated with the entrance of the medieval synagogue of Gouveia. It was found in 1967 during works on Rua Nova and remains one of the clearest material references to the town’s Jewish past.

The museum also refers to a lapidary stone sometimes associated with a Jewish individual. This attribution should be treated with caution. The stone does not contain a Hebrew inscription, and its symbols alone do not prove a Jewish connection.

Casa da Vivência Judaica as a Starting Point

The house introduces visitors to routes beyond the building itself, including the medieval Judiaria of Gouveia, the memory of the Inquisition in Melo, and the crypto-Jewish memory associated with Folgosinho.

Other places in the municipality, including Nabais and Nabainhos, are also connected to this wider heritage itinerary. In this sense, the Casa da Vivência Judaica functions as the local starting point for understanding how Jewish and New Christian memory is distributed across the territory of Gouveia.