On Saturday night, for the first time ever the Jewish Community of Oporto marked the “Day of Shame” by lighting the candles of a menorah in front of the Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue and launching on YouTube a video entitled "Soviet-style anti-Semitism in Portugal".

The date marked the first year since the Synagogue was invaded by a large number of policemen due to the alleged fraudulent issuance of certificates of Sephardic origin that allowed obtaining Portuguese nationality. The search warrants for the Oporto Synagogue were based solely on anonymous denunciations by convicted persons. All the accusations against the Community were technically impossible.

The warrants stated that the Community’s religious and secular leaders were suspected of stealing the money of the fees charged to Jews of Sephardic origin, that the certificates of Sephardic origin were issued by the Vice-President’s husband’s construction company, that he issued fake invoices to the Community, that the Chief Rabbi of the Community bribed officials of the registry he never visited, and that he had forged the Sephardic origin of French Israeli who had, in fact, been certified, and rightly so by the Lisbon Community, and that of a Russian Israeli who had in fact been certified and rightly so, by the Rabbinate of origin. At the same time, the police tried to find "suitcases with money" at the house of the Community’s Vice-President, who is the granddaughter of the founder of the Community, Captain Barros Basto, known wordwide as the “Portuguese Dreyfus”.

The "Day of Shame" will be marked every year as an antisemitic show that was done “BASED ON NOTHING”, in the words of the Court of Appeal on September 27. The Jewish Community of Oporto was slandered throughout the world, in 200 countries, and will never regain its good name.

The video now published recalls that the antisemitic campaign to destroy the respectable image of the only strong Jewish community in Portugal and the Sephardic law (which was actually destroyed seven days after the police operation) began in 2020 with a “Palestine cause” of the foreign minister. Gradually, anonymous denunciators with convictions, half a dozen ardent journalists and influencers with a history of antisemitism, joined the campaign, together with thieves robbing offices and homes, and even murderers.

It should be noted that already on October 6 of the previous year, 2021, the Judicial Police of Oporto had ruled on the main anonymous letter against the Jewish community of Oporto, concluding that the case should not even give rise to an investigation. It stated: "The complaint is too generic and does not provide sufficient elements to support a crime report, only identifying a natural person and a legal, religious person and insinuating the existence of others involved who are not identified, nor any witnesses or even the circumstances or concrete way in which the alleged criminal offenses occurred." "The CIP [Jewish Community of Oporto], not being a public entity, has the power to hire natural or legal persons to provide services it deems necessary, which are not subject to the provisions of the Public Procurement Code." "It is also a fact that with the entry into force of the Citizenship Law applied to the descendants of Portuguese Sephardim, the Jewish Communities of Oporto and Lisbon had to reorganize themselves in order to respond to the competences conferred on them by the Portuguese State." "Taking into account the content of the complaint and all the steps taken to collect information, it was not possible for us to confirm clear indications that those responsible for the CIP, or their families, would illicitly channel part of the funds of that entity for their own benefit." "It is not possible for us to make any judgment as to the suitability of the certificates attesting to the descent of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, since we have not obtained access to the means of proof and documentation on which they are based and also because we are not endowed with the special historical and genealogy knowledge necessary for such an analysis. Since it is not appropriate in this context to make considerations as to the way in which the entire process of acquiring citizenship takes place in this way, it is true that the State exempted itself from its responsibility to verify the suitability of the candidates, namely as regards the fact that they belonged to a Sephardic community of Portuguese origin and attributed this burden to a third party, holding the ability to effectively decide who meets the conditions for obtaining Portuguese citizenship, and that same entity is a direct beneficiary of the resulting proceeds."

The Jewish Community of Oporto is composed of around one thousand Jews who originate from 30 countries. The community has three synagogues, a Holocaust Museum, a Jewish Museum and kosher restaurants. In one of its programmes to combat antisemitism, the Oporto Jewish Community produced the film "1618" about the history of the Inquisition in the city. Airlines from Arab countries have purchased the rights to screen the film.