In the early 20th century, the photographic studio known as Photographia Ingleza was operated in Lisbon by the brothers Josef (Joseph) Lazarus and Maurice Lazarus, two figures associated with the modern Jewish presence in the city. The studio was established on Rua Ivens, in the Chiado area, one of Lisbon’s most dynamic cultural and commercial districts at the time.

Before settling in Lisbon, the Lazarus brothers had worked extensively in Mozambique, where they became pioneers in the large-scale production of photographic postcards and albums depicting colonial life. This experience shaped their technical expertise and commercial approach to photography. On May 1, 1909, they officially opened Photographia Ingleza in Lisbon, positioning the studio as a provider of high-quality portraiture and photographic prints.

Only three days after its opening, the studio received formal appointment as photographer to the Portuguese Royal Household, a distinction that placed Photographia Ingleza among the most prestigious photographic establishments in the country. From their premises on Rua Ivens, the Lazarus brothers produced studio portraits, official photographs, and images that circulated widely in illustrated magazines and visual media of the period.

The address of the studio is documented as Rua Ivens 53, Lisbon, a detail preserved through photographic stamps and museum records. This location is particularly significant, as it situates the Lazarus brothers within a street already closely linked to the history of Portuguese photography. It is noteworthy, and somewhat ironic, that Photographia Ingleza operated on Rua Ivens, the same street where the renowned photographer Joshua Benoliel lived. This coincidence highlights Rua Ivens as a discreet but important axis of early 20th century photographic production in Lisbon, bringing together, within the same urban space, key figures of the city’s visual culture.

Within the context of Jew Where, Photographia Ingleza stands as a marker of Jewish professional life in modern Lisbon and of the contribution of Jewish photographers to the construction of the city’s visual memory during the period of Jewish reestablishment in Portugal.

The Lusaka Synagogue is a key reference point for the history of Jewish presence in Zambia and, more broadly, in Central Africa. Jewish settlement in the region developed primarily during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, within the framework of British colonial rule in Northern Rhodesia. Jews arrived mainly from Eastern Europe, South Africa, and other parts of the British Empire, often engaged in commerce, administration, medicine, and technical professions. Lusaka, which became the capital in 1935, soon concentrated the country’s small but organized Jewish population.

The synagogue was established in the mid 20th century to serve this growing community. It was conceived as both a religious and communal space, allowing the maintenance of Jewish ritual life, collective identity, and social cohesion in a geographically isolated context. Religious services, lifecycle events, and communal meetings were held there, reinforcing continuity with Jewish traditions while adapting to local conditions.

The building itself is architecturally modest, reflecting the size and resources of the community. Rather than monumental design, its structure prioritized functionality, housing the essential liturgical elements required for prayer and communal use. This simplicity is characteristic of many synagogues established by small diaspora communities in Africa, where permanence was often uncertain and populations were mobile.

During the second half of the 20th century, particularly after Zambian independence in 1964, the Jewish population of Lusaka began to decline. Political change, economic shifts, and new migration patterns led many Jewish families to relocate to South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel, or other countries. As a result, regular religious activity diminished, and the synagogue gradually ceased to function as an active center of worship.

Despite this decline, the Lusaka Synagogue remains an important site of memory. Its documentation through photographs and archival references preserves the material evidence of Jewish life in Zambia and testifies to a broader history of Jewish dispersion across Africa. Within the context of Jewish heritage, the synagogue represents both presence and transition, marking a chapter in which Jewish communities established religious, social, and cultural structures far from traditional centers, and later dispersed in response to historical change.

Founded in 1899 as a Jewish charitable institution, the Cozinha Económica Israelita became one of Lisbon’s most important community-run relief services, especially during the refugee crisis of the Second World War.

By the late 1910s, it was operating in Travessa do Noronha, a short dead-end lane just below Rua da Escola Politécnica and near Jardim do Príncipe Real, an urban setting that would later become strongly associated with wartime transit, hunger, paperwork, and survival.

Institutional context

Because the Jewish community in Lisbon faced long periods without full legal recognition, communal life was often consolidated through autonomous benevolent institutions. In the official historical narrative of the Comunidade Israelita de Lisboa (CIL), the Cozinha Económica appears alongside other key welfare initiatives as a foundational pillar of organized Jewish life in modern Lisbon.

During the Second World War, this support network expanded dramatically. Financed through international Jewish aid, including the American Joint Distribution Committee, the community maintained the Cozinha Económica and other services, distributing food, clothing, and medical support to refugees in transit through Portugal.

The Travessa do Noronha complex

Contemporary reporting identifies a small institutional cluster in Travessa do Noronha: the soup kitchen at no. 17, a Jewish hospital at no. 19, and a shelter or albergue at no. 21.

This was not only a social service address, it was a micro-geography of wartime Lisbon. Refugees, aid workers, and state surveillance all intersected here, and the street entered later memory as a place where daily subsistence and bureaucratic uncertainty were lived side by side.

Material object with a biography: meal tickets

One of the most revealing material traces of the Cozinha Económica is the meal-ticket system. Refugees who needed to eat there received senhas de refeição, a practical mechanism that turned communal aid into an organized, trackable routine.

A surviving example, reproduced in press coverage, is a meal ticket issued in the name of the child refugee Benjamin Schlesinger, linking the institution to specific lives and family trajectories, not only to abstract numbers.

Scale of assistance

Sources describe the Cozinha Económica as providing hundreds of meals per day and as part of a wider effort that supported thousands of Jewish refugees passing through Portugal during the war years.

A decisive rupture: sale, demolition, and disappearance

After the postwar period, the physical site did not remain intact. Reporting based on community testimony states that the CIL sold the Travessa do Noronha buildings in 1959 or 1960, after which the original structures were demolished and replaced by later developments. The area saw further demolition again in 2019 in the context of new real-estate projects.

A contemporary gesture of memory

To mark and honor this historic site in the urban fabric, the Centro Cultural Rua da Judiaria already has a Stolperschwellen prepared to be installed on the pavement in front of the building, creating a visible, permanent point of remembrance for the Cozinha Económica Israelita and the lives sustained here. The installation is planned for 2026.