This month, the Israeli news channel 24 published a report by journalist Emily Frances about the Jewish Community of Oporto. The star of the piece was the oldest member, Marilyn Flitterman, who at 95 years old frequently visits the synagogue, drives an open-top car and plays the piano both at home and in a Jazz group that she leads.

Born in Brooklyn among hundreds of thousands of Jews, Flitterman came to Oporto in the late 1960s and found an empty synagogue. The then religious leader of the community, Srul Finkelstein, had just passed away and the few Jews in the city simply gave up meeting there periodically. Throughout the report, Marilyn Flitterman explains why she decided to move to Oporto more than half a century ago, as well as the secrets of her extraordinary longevity that impresses everyone. She lives in a huge house in front of the Atlantic Ocean and when she looks at the horizon she knows she is in the last house before Brooklyn where she was born.

The reporter visited the city's central synagogue, the Community's tremendous library, the painting gallery, as well as the Jewish museum, the Holocaust museum, the hotel, the Community's kosher restaurants and the Port wine cellar. President Gabriel Senderowicz explained what the current Jewish community is like and how easy it is to be a Jew in Oporto. Vice President Isabel Lopes recalled the efforts of her grandfather, Captain Barros Basto, to promote Jewish life in the city and build the great temple.

History was revisited through the community painting gallery. Museologist Hugo Vaz explained, painting by painting, what life was like for the Jewish community centuries ago, as well as the terrible suffering that the ban on Judaism and the inquisition caused. Suffering did not end in the 19th century with the extinction of the Inquisition. The 20th century saw the arrival of refugees from Nazism and the current city's Holocaust museum was dedicated to them.

The director of the Holocaust museum, Michael Rothwell, showed the Room of Names of the museum to Emily Frances. He pointed out the names of his grandparents who died in Auschwitz, said that their shoe shop in Berlin was stoned on Kristallnacht and explained that for that reason his beloved mother and uncle were sent to Manchester when they were still teenagers. Parents expected to go to their children as soon as they could sell their possessions. There was no time. They were put on trains heading to Poland. Their children waited for them for days, weeks, years. They would never see their parents again.

Frances also spoke to Bacelar Vasconcelos, the coordinator of the promotion of Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism. Asked about the celebration of the Day of Shame that the community always carries out on March 11th (due to a coup by State agents who tried to destroy it on that day in 2022), Vasconcelos explained that these acts are isolated and cannot be confused with each other, neither with the state nor with the population.

The population, in fact, was not only mentioned but also shown by Emily Frances, who especially loved Ribeira and said that Oporto was one of the best destinations in Europe to be visited by tourists. It is.