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The new Jews of Porto: How the Portuguese city built a Jewish community from scratch
PORTO, Portugal (JTA) — In an apartment overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, 95-year-old Marilyn Flitterman habitually sits at her piano to play tunes by George Gershwin and Irving Berlin — long ago committed to memory — while looking back at the past 50 years of her life in Porto.
Born in Brooklyn, she moved to the city on Portugal’s northwest coast with her husband and children in 1970, following a work opportunity her husband found as a textile designer. Coming from a Jewish family in a “Jewish town,” she figured she would drop by Porto’s Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue. The quick visit convinced her to give up on synagogue attendance.
“There was nobody there — two or three people,” Flitterman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Porto, the country’s second-largest city, whose cobblestone streets and twinkling Douro riverbank hum with tourists, was home to about 40 Jews in 2012. They couldn’t scrape together enough cash to hire a rabbi or seal a leak in the historic synagogue’s ceiling.
But over the past decade, a community of roughly 1,000 Jews has materialized in Porto, thanks to a law that since 2015 has allowed the return of people whose ancestors were expelled during the Portuguese Inquisition. Jewish locals organized a campaign of expansive outreach online and in news advertisements around the world, and an entire community of immigrants heeded the call.
Funding reaped from new residents has enabled the building of a rapid succession of institutions and Jewish tourism attractions — including a Jewish Museum opened in 2019, a Holocaust Museum in 2021 and a cemetery in 2023. The Holocaust Museum has drawn over 50,000 visitors a year since it opened, most of them Portuguese schoolchildren, said Michael Rothwell, the British-born director of the city’s Jewish museums.
“We started to reach out with any means at our disposal to the world of Jews, telling them: Look at Sepharad [Hebrew word for the Iberian Peninsula], this is where Sephardic Jews come from, come and see where it all started,” said Rothwell. “And it worked — we started having quite a few visitors, and some decided to live here.”
The community features young Jews and families from across the globe. Gabriel Senderowicz, the president of Porto’s Jewish communal board, arrived from Brazil in 2017.
“We have about 30 nationalities here — people from Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Tunisia, Turkey, France,” he said. “All continents are represented here.”
Flitterman was inspired to return to synagogue when David Garrett, a member of the Jewish board who has led the community’s revitalization, became her upstairs neighbor. Now the oldest member of a young community, Flitterman pulls up to synagogue every week in a convertible she insists on driving herself, notwithstanding her children’s reminders that she is pushing 100. During an event celebrating European Jewish culture in September, she saw 600 people fill Kadoorie’s seats to watch its choir — in a community that 10 years ago was too small to gather a minyan, or prayer quorum of 10 men.
Marilyn Flitterman poses in her apartment with her daughter Dara. (Shira Li Bartov)
By the end of 2022, about 75,000 people were granted Portuguese citizenship through the Sephardic nationality law. But the future of Jewish migration to Portugal may be determined by the country’s next government.
Portugal will hold a snap election on March 10, following Prime Minister Antonio Costa’s resignation amid charges of corruption. The recently-dissolved parliament advanced a bill to end the law for descendants of Sephardic Jews — partially because of a scandal that rocked the local and international Jewish community last year — and the measure is frozen until the new government takes shape. In Spain, a similar law of return that gave 36,000 applicants citizenship ended in 2019.
An international scandal
In March 2022, federal police raided the Kadoorie synagogue and arrested Rabbi Daniel Litvak on suspicion of influence peddling, document forgery and money laundering in the process of awarding Sephardic citizenship.
To apply for naturalization through the law of return, descendants must obtain certificates vouching for their lineage from Jewish community authorities in Porto or Lisbon. Porto’s authorities were accused of flouting the rules and privileging wealthy applicants in exchange for cash.
One man who received Portuguese citizenship after being certified in Porto made a particular splash across global headlines: Roman Abramovich, the Russian-Jewish billionaire alleged to have close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue is the largest Jewish house of worship in the Iberian Peninsula. (Shira Li Bartov)
Although Abramovich was approved by Porto authorities in 2020 and received citizenship the following year, his membership in the European Union spurred controversy only in 2022 — when it became apparent, as Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s border, that he could live in Europe despite the EU sanctions being imposed on Russian oligarchs.
Judges in Lisbon found no evidence of bribery or fraud in Abramovich’s approval. A SWIFT payment receipt seen by JTA shows that Abramovich paid 250 euros to the Jewish Community of Porto, the standard fee paid by all applicants. Local officials told JTA that Abramovich fulfilled the same criteria as everyone else who received certification in Porto.
Initially, the Portuguese government gave community leaders significant discretion to determine Sephardic ancestry. But Lisbon and Porto interpreted the law differently. In Lisbon, applicants underwent a genealogical study and did not have to identify as Sephardic Jews themselves, so long as they could prove lineage. Porto took a route that made the process faster and easier for Jews who wanted Portuguese nationality: They needed only to show the etymology of a family surname and an attestation from their local rabbi, both of which Abramovich provided.
After the scandal, Portugal radically strengthened its law’s requirements. Applicants must now prove they inherited property from Portugal or have visited the country regularly throughout their lives. The new criteria changed the proposed purpose of the law, originally presented as a form of reparation for descendants who had lost inherited assets and were unable to return.
The unproven allegations left a scar on members of Porto’s Jewish community, many of whom still grimace at the memory. Some view the incident as a smear campaign driven by bone-deep, generational antisemitism going back to the Inquisition. The city’s Jewish authority recently sued the state for 10 million euros in compensation for its reputational harm and “political aggression” against Porto’s Jews.
“We represented everything that the society of Portugal didn’t like,” said Garrett, who has lived in Porto his entire life. “They don’t like Jewish tradition, they don’t like the Shoah museum with all the children there, they don’t like Jewish success. We were nothing, and then we were growing, and we were totally destroyed. We will never forgive this.”
Rafael Galhano de Almeida, an immigration lawyer in Lisbon, said that some Portuguese people have correlated the nationality law with antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world. However, he also noted that some critics who are not antisemitic have raised legitimate questions.
“The community that is issuing the certificate proving you are a descendant of Sephardic Jews is the Jewish community,” said Almeida. “So for some people in Portugal, there is a conflict of interest, because you are issuing the certificate when you are the interested party.”
The law’s reverberations
Porto’s new businesses hold up a mirror to its blossoming Jewish community and surge of Jewish tourism. Recent years have seen the opening of four Jewish restaurants, a kosher hotel and a kosher grocery store.
Esther Boudara and Camelia Totan, who run the popular Iberia Sababa Kosher Restaurant, both have Sephardic roots. Boudara was born in France to parents of Turkish and Tunisian origin, while Totan comes from Morocco.
The partners moved to Porto in 2019, with husbands and children in tow, after Boudara read an article promoting its Jewish community in a French newspaper.
“This article said there are a few families coming from all around the world, they speak English, Portuguese, Hebrew — and the city of Porto is asking new Jewish families to come to settle,” said Boudara. “What city in the world asks something like this?”
Boudara and Totan set out to defy the bland stereotypes of kosher food with a diverse, cross-border Sephardic menu. On any Shabbat evening, Iberia’s tables teem with groups wolfing down Moroccan lamb, Tunisian fish and Israeli salads.
Esther Boudara, left, and Camelia Totan serve a cross-border Sephardic menu at Sababa. (Shira Li Bartov)
Other Jews, like Vivian Groisman, flocked to Porto for its quality of life. Groisman grew up in Brazil and arrived seven years ago with a student visa, then obtained citizenship through the Sephardic nationality law.
“If I get pregnant, I want my kids to walk in the street and go to the park and have a calm life, with doctors and schools nearby,” she said. “In Brazil, it takes an hour or two to go to work — you don’t have this way of life where you can go walking and be somewhere in 10 minutes. It’s so expensive to have a life there.”
However, some Jewish newcomers have felt a chafing response from Portuguese natives, driven sometimes by antisemitism and sometimes by resentment over the country’s economic stratification.
The Sephardic nationality law passed in 2013, while Portugal was gripped by a severe financial crisis. During the same period, the government passed other incentives for foreign investors to infuse money in the country, such as the “golden visa” scheme that offered a Portuguese passport in exchange for a minimum investment of 250,000 euros in the country.
Property investments helped end the debt crisis, but they also fueled a two-tiered system in which wealthy foreigners have bought up entire buildings while locals, whose wages are low, struggle to keep up with soaring rents.
Some Portuguese criticize these paths to citizenship as auctions selling off their nationality to the highest bidders. They point out that many people who were naturalized through the golden visa and the law of return enjoy the benefits of an EU passport without actually living in Portugal, learning its language or integrating into its culture.
But Almeida said that no matter what Sephardic Jewish descendants choose to do, as long as the law survives, simply owning nationality is their right.
“The law was created as a reparation law,” he said. “The goal was not to send people here, it was to give them the possibility of having a citizenship that was the citizenship of their ancestors.”
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The post The new Jews of Porto: How the Portuguese city built a Jewish community from scratch appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘We Are Being Held Hostage’: Lebanese TV Host Says Hezbollah Taking Lebanon Toward War, ‘Certain Death’
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
A Lebanese TV host said last week that Hezbollah has essentially taken Lebanon hostage, comparing what the Iran-backed terrorist organization has done to the country to the hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks in the US.
Dima Sadek, who hosts a show in Lebanon on MTV, expressed her fear and outrage over what Hezbollah is doing to Lebanon and the path of near-certain war it is taking, according to a report and translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Hezbollah, which wields significant political influence across Lebanon, boasts significant military capabilities much greater than those of other terrorist organizations in the region such as Hamas. The Lebanese Islamist group has long declared it seeks to destroy Israel.
“We are in danger of a hellish, existential war,” Sadek said on June 24 regarding the threats Hezbollah has made to countries such as Cyprus, which is in the European Union. “We are being held hostage. We have been hijacked by a group that has no clue of what is going on in this planet.”
She pointed out that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who was the only one who managed to save your axis in the Syrian war, cannot overcome Europe, so how come you are threatening Europe with such confidence?”
Regarding the fear and helplessness she and some other Lebanese feel over the direction Hezbollah is taking, she asked, “Do you know who we resemble? The passengers on the 9/11 airplanes. We are like airplane passengers who do not see what is happening around them. We are being led by one person, and we have no idea where we are heading.”
She added, “The only thing that we know for sure is that this person is taking us to a catastrophe and certain death.”
#ICYMI: Lebanese TV Host Dima Sadek: There Is Nothing Left of This Country Besides Hizbullah and Its Weapons; They Are Holding Us Hostage; We Are Like the Passengers on a Hijacked Plane on 9/11 Heading Towards Certain Death #Lebanon #Hizbullah @DimaSadek pic.twitter.com/v7WDtIQqEV
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 30, 2024
Hezbollah terrorists have been firing drones, rockets, and missiles at northern Israel daily from southern Lebanon since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, leading Israeli forces to strike back. Tensions have been escalating between both sides, fueling concerns that the conflict in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
More than 80,000 Israelis have evacuated Israel’s north and been unable to return to their homes. The majority of those spent the past nine months residing in hotels in safer areas of the country.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has also stepped up its threats against the rest of the world, including Cyprus.
Last month, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a speech in which he said an “all-out war” with Israel was “getting very close.” He added that if Cyprus, a European Union member, were to help Israel in some way during that war, then “Cyprus will be part of this war too.”
Israeli officials have said that, while they seek a diplomatic resolution to the current situation along the border with Lebanon, they are prepared to escalate military action against Hezbollah to push the terrorist group back in order to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
Hezbollah, like Hamas, has been accused of using civilians as “human shields” when fighting Israel.
The post ‘We Are Being Held Hostage’: Lebanese TV Host Says Hezbollah Taking Lebanon Toward War, ‘Certain Death’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah Launches Big Attack on Israel, Sonic Booms Rattle Beirut
Rockets launched from Lebanon to Israel over the border are intercepted, amid the ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Israel, near the border with Lebanon, July 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border.
Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides have indicated they want to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent.
As the latest violence played out in areas at or near the frontier — in keeping with the pattern of the last nine months — the sound of sonic booms rattled nerves for the second successive day in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.
Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over several areas of the country, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at 10 Israeli military sites in retaliation for Israel‘s killing of Hezbollah commander Mohammed Nasser in the south on Wednesday. Nasser is one of the most senior Hezbollah commanders to be killed by Israel during the conflict.
The Israeli military said around “200 projectiles and over 20 suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” a number of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and fighter jets.
Israel‘s ambulance service said no casualties were reported. The Israeli military said some of the drones and interceptor shrapnel set off fires.
The Israeli air force “struck Hezbollah military structures” in the areas of Ramyeh and Houla,” it said, referring to two villages in south Lebanon.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, speaking at an event in Beirut commemorating Nasser, indicated his group would widen its targeting.
“The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit,” Safieddine said.
DIPLOMATIC PUSH
The United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to deescalate the fighting. Hezbollah has said it will not cease fire as long as Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The hostilities have inflicted a heavy toll on both sides of the frontier, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Amos Hochstein, a senior US official at the heart of the diplomacy, discussed French and American efforts to restore calm in meetings with French officials on Wednesday, a White House official said.
“France and the United States share the goal of resolving the current conflict across the Blue Line by diplomatic means, allowing Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return home with long-term assurances of safety and security,” the official said, referring to the demarcation line between the two neighbors.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that Israeli forces were hitting Hezbollah “very hard every day” and will be ready to take any action necessary against the group, though the preference is to reach a negotiated arrangement.
Hezbollah also launched rockets at Israel on Wednesday in retaliation for Nasser’s killing.
Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets along the border with Lebanon after its Palestinian terrorist ally Hams launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, declaring its support for the Palestinians.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and some 90 civilians, according to Reuters tallies. Israel says fire from Lebanon has killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians.
The post Hezbollah Launches Big Attack on Israel, Sonic Booms Rattle Beirut first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.