The solemn commemorations were the culmination of a process begun by former President Mario Soares in 1988 when he first apologized to Jews for centuries of persecution suffered by their ancestors during the Grand Inquisition.
Events included the inauguration of a synagogue in the small eastern town of Belmonte, where Jews secretly preserved their religion and traditions for centuries, and the re-enactment of Manuel's edict at Lisbon's Maria II National Theater, built on the site of an old Inquisition court.
Portugal's President, Jorge Sampaio, joined Israel's Parliament Speaker, Dan Tichon, and officials of the Portuguese Government and Catholic Church for prayers today in Lisbon's synagogue.
Then, speaking before a packed Parliament, Mr. Sampaio called the expulsion of Portugal's Jews an ''iniquitous act with deep and disastrous consequences'' for Portugal, at the time one of Europe's richest and most powerful nations. He called the action ''a renunciation of the best we were and had.''
Mr. Sampaio also urged Israel to keep up the momentum of the Middle East peace effort. Mr. Tichon said Israel would ''do everything it possibly can to promote peace.''
On Wednesday, Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Vera Jardim called the expulsion of Portugal's Jews ''a black piece of our history.'' The state, he said, owes Jews ''moral reparation'' for centuries of ''brutal persecution.''
The expulsion in 1496 was politically motivated. Manuel saw a chance to rule the whole Iberian Peninsula by marrying Princess Isabella of Spain. Her parents, the fervent ''Catholic kings'' Ferdinand and Isabella, had already deported Spain's Jews four years earlier and would bless the marriage only if Manuel followed suit.
About 60,000 Spanish Jews who had taken refuge in Portugal under Manuel's pragmatic cousin Joao II prepared to flee.
But Manuel, anxious not to lose a pool of talent that had helped improve the technology and cartography used by Vasco da Gama and other Portuguese explorers, made a last-minute deal.
Jews would be allowed to stay if they converted to Christianity. The ''new Christians'' adopted new names, inter-married and even ate pork in public to prove their devotion to Catholicism.
But that did not always help. Under the Portuguese Inquisition, at times more cruel than its Spanish counterpart, tens of thousands of Jews were tortured and burned at the stake.
Today in Portugal, a country of 10 million,
there are about 1,000 practicing Jews, mainly in
Lisbon, Belmonte and Oporto.