The modern Jewish Community of Porto was officially founded and registered on August 1, 1923, by Captain Barros Basto alongside a small group of Ashkenazi Jewish merchants from Central and Eastern Europe. The community's statutes were officially registered with the Civil Government on the date.
Although the community experienced a period of prosperity in its first decade, with the help of the London congregation and European and Asian philanthropists, the Portuguese Dreyfus Affair would trigger its total ruin, with seventy consecutive years without a regular minyan. This state of "assisted death" would only end much later, giving way to the most complete Jewish organization in the world in cultural terms.
It was no coincidence that the Porto Jewish Community celebrated its 103rd anniversary during the Parashat Eikev, which highlights the best of Jewish resilience.
