The Faro Jewish Cemetery is the only remaining vestige of the 1st post inquisition Jewish presence in Portugal!
Jews fled Portugal to escape the inquisition from the end of the XV Century. The Marquise de Pombal invited their descendants, traders and businessmen in Gibraltar and North Africa back to Portugal to help rebuild the economy after the devastating earthquake in 1755.  
They settled in Faro, and became a thriving 60 family community, locally known as "Little Jerusalem". They had 2 synagogues of which neither now remains. The community became defunct due to the migration of the young to the cities and the aged dying.
The land of the Cemetery was purchased by three community leaders, Joseph Sicsu the Chazan (cantor), Moises Sequerra and Samuel Amram in 1851. The Jewish calendar date 5638 (1887) above the entrance gates is thought to be when the wall was constructed. The first burial was that of Rabbi Joseph Toledano in 1838 and the last, Abraham Ruah in 1932. José Ruah, who died in the 1940’s, then looked after the cemetery. During the ensuing years it fell to total neglect, despite the efforts a number of concerned persons. One such person was Advocate Semtob Dreiblatt Sequerra, who actually came to a maintenance accord with the Faro Municipality. In return he donated the land for a school to the Municipality. The school was built, but the maintenance came to very little and the premises deteriorated. Sequerra was also responsible for ensuring that the furniture of the “rich” Synagogue in Rua Castilho was not lost when this property fell to the developers axe, enabling the furnishing of the new Isaac Bitton Synagogue Museum at the Cemetery 40 years later.