^{Credit: Comunidade Judaica de Lisboa}

Maio, 2026, On Thursday, 21. Night terrorists dared to paint graffiti with messages "Free Palestine from the river to the sea" on the Ventura Terra building and on the Lisbon synagogue gate. The Jewish Community of Lisbon (CIL) condemned an act of vandalism close to the synagogue, classifying it as "antisemitic."

The leadership of the Jewish Community of Lisbon called on the authorities to identify those responsible and act “with determination and firmness.” "The slogan inscribed on the building is associated with the denial of the right to the existence of the State of Israel," stated CIL, noting that there is no political context that justifies the widespread hatred against Jews. "Political criticism of the Israeli government, or concrete actions of its ministers, cannot serve as justification for attacks on synagogues or Jewish communities in the diaspora".

This very serious act is far from being the only one, much less the most serious, that has occurred in Portugal in recent years, always accompanied by absolute inertia on the part of the State. The PJN lists some of these cases.

Plot with toxic pesticide

June 2025. A plot to poison Israeli attendees at the Boom Festival in Portugal was uncovered and thwarted before it could be executed. A Jewish artist using the pseudonym "Sarah" accidentally or intentionally gained entry into a private WhatsApp group consisting of radical anti-Israel and far-left activists. Group members discussed targeted attacks against the roughly 4,000 Israeli festival goers expected to attend the psy-trance event in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal. The plans included spiking party drugs (like LSD) with strychnine (a highly toxic pesticide), contaminating food and water supplies near Israeli camping zones, and setting fire to their tents. No actual poisonings took place at the festival because the operational plans were intercepted and exposed in the weeks leading up to the July event.
Politicians did not condemn what happened. There were no media campaigns. The police have done nothing to this day. The case has been forgotten.

"Neither Gaza nor Boavista"

January, 2024. Lists with the names of Jews in a newspaper that attempted to explain and rationalize a demonstration for better housing, which placed the Israeli businessmen of the Porto synagogue ("Boavista") as being responsible for the crisis in the sector. "We don't want to be tenants of murderous landlords," was the central message of that demonstration, which brought together thousands of people.

Politicians did not condemn what happened. There were no media campaigns. The police have done nothing to this day. The case has been forgotten.

"Apartheid"

October, 2023, A few days after the massacre in Israel that took the lives of 1220 people and the kidnapping of 251, the central synagogue in Porto was spray-painted with Apartheid inscriptions. The crime was downplayed by Portuguese society, especially since analysts and commentators on the system, such as Miguel Tavares, publicly declared that the State of Israel had intentionally caused the deaths of its citizens. "The genocide is in Gaza," that unrestrained socialist shouted.

Politicians did not condemn what happened. There were no media campaigns. The police have done nothing to this day. The case has been forgotten.

"Is Patrick Drahi here?"

March 2022. In one of the most scandalous fiascos in Portuguese history, Lisbon police raided the Porto synagogue as if they were in their own homes to try to find documents about the Franco-Moroccan Patrick Drahi, who then led PT-Altice and SIRESP. Informed that they had wasted their time, given that this multimillionaire was associated with the Lisbon community, the prosecutor present immediately declared that in that scenario the Lisbon synagogue would be raided next. It didn't happen (and nothing justified it, anyway), because the socialist government only wanted to destroy one law and spit on the country's largest synagogue, and didn't want to risk invading another. It was the "separation of powers" at work, the "rule of law" at its best.

The reported facts above represent nothing new. The antisemitic Portuguese history is endless and penetrates the depths of history.

"Death to the Jews!"

April, 1974. The synagogue of the "Portuguese Dreyfus" was often stoned and vandalized after the revolution, with inscriptions of "Death to the Jews." It was never determined who the perpetrators of the crime were, and in fact, it may have been the socialists who occupied the factories of the community members at that time, just as it may have been the national socialists who worship swastikas. At the time, political extremes united, but no one suspected that extremism would also find many followers in the political center. That is the situation today.