The fifth annual Cape Verdean-Jewish Seder was held at the St. Patrick’s Church in Roxbury, on March 24, 2010 to bring together the two communities. Over 200 included a mix of Jews and Cape Verdeans. Attorney Thiadora A. Pina, an associate at the Law Office of Neil Burns, is Vice President of the Board of Directors for CVC Unido – Cape Verdean Community Unity, and was an organizer of the community event. The Cape Verdean Consulate General was the guest speaker.
Attorney Thiadora Pina and a fellow volunteer register guests at the fifth annual Cape Verdean-Jewish Seder in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
The Cape Verdean – Jewish Seder is a new ritual which celebrates the commonalities of the two groups; histories of enslavement and liberation, far-flung Diasporas, challenges of immigration to the United States, an heritages of prevailing over tremendous hardships. Many folks do not know, but for a period when Cape Verde was a Portuguese colony, Jews facing oppression in Portugal, during Inquisition, fled to Cape Verde in the 15th and 16th centuries. Apparently, the groups intermarried and ceased to exist separately.