Jewish museums typically cover history from ancient times to the present to challenge the idea that Judaism is a relic of the past, to celebrate thousands of years of continuous cultural heritage, and to highlight how the Jewish community continually adapts.

This week, the Porto Jewish Museum paid tribute to the victims of the massacre of October 7, 2023 including 1140 dead, 3400 injured, 247 hostages, and thousands of other private misfortunes that befell both Israel, and the world Jewish community. A special tribute was dedicated to the 25 people murdered and/or kidnapped who had Portuguese citizenship, in addition to Israeli citizenship and, in some cases, French, British or Argentine citizenship.

List of 17 dead, of blessed memory: Ran Guili (from an Ottoman family, his grandparents being "protected Spaniards" in Alexandria in the 1930s), Yossi Sharabi (from a Moroccan family surnamed Turgeman), Idan Shtivi (from the Benveniste family, of Bulgarian origin), Gila Peled Cohen and his son Daniel (from a family from the Portuguese community of Tunis), Dror Or Ermoza (from a Ladino-speaking family and inspired the series "The Beautiful Queen of Jerusalem"), Tsachi Idan Eini and his daughter Maayan Idan (from a Turkish and Egyptian family), Moshe "Moshiko" Saadyan (from a Moroccan and Turkish family), Dorin Atias (from an Ottoman and Moroccan family), Liraz Assulin Shitrit (from a Moroccan family), Nevo Arad Edry (from a Moroccan family), Gilad Ben-Yehuda (from a Turkish family surnamed Eskenazi), Ravid Katz (from a Bulgarian family), Orin Bira Kasorlla and his daughter Tair Kasorlla (from the Paredes family, from the former Yugoslavia), and Rotem Neumann Kadosh (also from a Sephardic family from the Balkans). These victims also suffered the murder or abduction of parents, siblings, spouses, children and friends.

List of the 8 kidnapped individuals with Portuguese citizenship who were rescued from captivity: Ofer Kalderon (from a Greek family), Ariel Cunio and his brother David Cunio (from a Turkish family), Adina Moshe Galante (from a Turkish family), Or Levy (from a Turkish family), Eli Sharabi (from a Moroccan family surnamed Turgeman), Omer Shem Tov (from a Moroccan family with the surname Eskenazi), Segev Halfon (from Moroccan and Tunisian family). These victims also had to endure the murder or kidnapping of parents, siblings, spouses, children and friends.

In front of hundreds of students every day, the museum made a point of highlighting that the 25 victims give honor to the past, present and future generations of the Jewish people, and to the strength of Jewish civilization, all the more so because their family trajectories resemble those of personalities such as Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (from a Moroccan family, which was a signatory of Israel's Declaration of Independence), Haim Solomon (the "Financier of American Independence", who spoke Ladino), Abraham Barak Salem (the "Jewish Gandhi", born in Cochin and who was a key figure of Indian independence), Horace Gunzburg (the "Russian Rothschild", of the Porto family), Sir Moses Montefiore (British banker, of the Lumbrozo de Mattos Mocatta family of the Spanish and Portuguese community of London), and Lord Lawrence Kadoorie (the "Chinese Rothschild", who is the son of Laura Lumbrozo de Mattos Mocatta, of London).

The 25 victims of blessed memory lived up to the strength of Portugal's co-founder, Yaish ben Yahia, a descendant of King David and a colleague of Maimonides. Portugal was once an Empire. At the time of the expulsion and the ban on Judaism, in 1497, when the world's Jewish population did not exceed 1 million people, about 20% lived in Portugal, based on the Sefer Yuḥasin ("Book of Genealogies") of Abraham Zacuto.