In 2011, covered in moss, the Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue building had never been registered on the register office. One day, an anonymous person started climbing the synagogue stairs and, when asked where he was going, replied that "the building didn't belong to anyone!"
In 2012, when it was officially registered with the land registry, the building of the synagogue was far from having all its problems resolved. It rained inside the building and the electrical panel was so old that the lights went out when they were most needed. All this cost 154,234 euros, which were raised among the few members of the community and a non-Jewish lady who decided to contribute to the cost of the painting.
The next challenge was finding Jews. The Jewish people always regenerate without asking anyone for permission. Jewish organisations do not exist to be friends with everyone, but to produce Jewish life. Today there are two synagogues full of life and a cultural structure of unparalleled size in Europe.
The history of the Jews of Porto is the history of success and ruin, of life and death, and on the whole, it is human history as beautiful as it is cruel.
When they were expelled and robbed of everything in the fifteenth century, the Jews of Porto paid 38% of the city's taxes and still influenced international trade.
When in the seventeenth century the city's economy flourished, the persecution of the New Christian community by the Inquisition ruined everything.
When in the twentieth century the Rothschilds, the Kadoorie family and other Jewish philanthropists invested in the regeneration of the community, the "Portuguese Dreyfus" affair eliminated everything.
Remembering the story of the anonymous man who climbed the stairs saying the building belonged to no one is remembering that, in the 21st century and once again, the Community didn't start from scratch, but from less than zero.
There is always a moment when history shows a permanent pattern. When the strongest European Jewish community in cultural terms was born in Porto with the help of the granddaughter of the wronged soldier, the Portuguese State joined forces to trample on the symbols of the community, starting with its synagogue and the Jewish museum, and it even tried to decapitate the community leadership. This action was a total fiasco, but that is not what matters most now.
There is always a moment when patience and tolerance run out.
