With this significant step, the community sets a precedent and example for Jewish communities around the world.

Michael Rothwell, director of Porto’s Jewish and Holocaust Museums:  “It is time for traditional Jewish optimism to look back and realize that the plundering of Jewish assets did not only happen in antiquity and the Middle Ages. We only need to go back a few years, to the 20th century, to remember that not only the Ashkenazi communities of central and eastern Europe, but also many Sephardic communities, especially in Arab and Muslim countries, were stripped of their heritage and assets.”

The Jewish Community of Oporto has officially announced that the Jewish Agency for Israel as its legal heir, which would mean JAFI would inherit all of the community’s assets should it one day be dissolved as an official entity.

The significant assets include synagogues, museums, libraries, cinema, restaurants and art gallery.

This announcement follows a process which began in 2021 to ensure that the Jewish community of Oporto’s assets can not be claimed by the state or other entities as with many communal assets stolen or nationalized during the 20th Century during the Holocaust or the plundering of Jewish assets in the Middle East and North Africa as the Jews were expelled or forced to flee.

A monument to this agreement was inaugurated on Sunday on the European Day of Jewish Culture at the Jewish Museum of Oporto, which regularly welcomes visitors from all over the world.

The text on the monument calls on all Jewish communities in the diaspora to take a similar step and legally safeguard who will inherit their assets.

Michael Rothwell, the director of Porto’s Jewish and Holocaust museums, and a grandson of German Jews who lost everything they owned in Hitler’s Germany explained the rationale.

“It is time for traditional Jewish optimism to look back and realize that the plundering of Jewish assets did not only happen in antiquity and the Middle Ages,” he said. said. “We only need to go back a few years, to the 20th century, to remember that not only the Ashkenazi communities of central and eastern Europe, but also many Sephardic communities, especially in Arab and Muslim countries, were stripped of their heritage and assets.”

“No one knows what the world will be like in a few years. This is a very important matter that must be addressed as quickly as possible. We call on other communities to follow suit,’’ said Rothwell.

In recent years, the Jewish Community of Oporto has become one of the most noteworthy Jewish communities around the world.

The most notable Jewish assets in Oporto are the monumental central synagogue, called Kadoorie Mekor Haim, which is the largest in the Iberian Peninsula, the Jewish Museum, located a few meters from the synagogue, and a cemetery called “Campo da Igualdade Isaac Aboab”.

Founded in 1923 by Captain Barros Basto, known by the nickname “Portuguese Dreyfus” after being expelled from the army for helping to perform circumcisions for converts, the community has produced numerous films on the history of Jews in Portugal – including “1506 – The Genocide of Lisbon” and “1618”, the most internationally acclaimed Portuguese film in history, and also has a Holocaust Museum that, each year, welcomes more than 50,000 teenagers from schools around the country.

The Jewish Agency was chosen as the heir to the Jewish community of Porto due to its importance in the foundation and development of the State of Israel and the global Jewish community.

Founded in 1929 and currently based in Jerusalem, the Jewish Agency is the largest Jewish NGO in the world and is funded by the Keren Hayesod, major Jewish communities, federations, foundations and donors from Israel and around the world. In 2008, the Jewish Agency won the Israel Prize for its historical contribution to Israel and to the Jewish world.