In 2022, Portuguese politicians and media groups fueled by a "Palestinian” passion used Roman Abramovich's name to destroy a law that returned nationality to Jews of Portuguese origin. The political plan worked. The law was overturned. They were shouting for months that the so-called "oligarch" had bribed the Oporto Jewish Community by paying for the Holocaust museum and swore that his family had no Portuguese names. However, the Community prefers to call him "Mr. Abel Benjamin Rocha da Leiva Leja Rosa Abramovich" according to the names of his family or with the nickname "Mr. Two Hundred and Fifty Euros, thank you".
The Community was defamed, but apparently the game isn't over. Now the Oporto Jewish Museum displays a letter to the famous target, dated December 18, 2025, and produced a short video on YouTube where the narrator reads the letter from beginning to end. The room dedicated to modern antisemitism where the letter is located documents the evolution of antisemitism in Portugal from 2015 to the present. It has been renovated and updated year after year and the latest development is the display of that letter, sent by the Oporto Jewish Community president to the wealthy philanthropist.
This story is more complicated than it seems at first glance. An alleged case of “corruption” involving a Jewish community may actually reveal a case of State corruption. If that's the case, the State of Israel should intervene at the appropriate time, as it's impossible to believe that the Portuguese State will punish itself and acknowledge that it is completely corrupt.
The largest synagogue in Portugal was searched by the police in 2022. According to the Community, at the time of the searches the main target of the police was Patrick Drahi, a staunch Sephardic Jew who had been the subject of “convenient” anonymous denunciations, and whom that community didn't even know. However, the said criminal investigation started with a communication from the socialist Ministry of Justice to the socialist leading General prosecutor reporting the publicity in the media of suspicions about the irregularity of the acquisition procedure by that “Russian citizen”, of Portuguese nationality. The question is that the Community states that the press of socialist oligarchs authorized by the system did a favor to the corrupt government and did not previously listen to the organization, which was falsely and scandalously accused of having certified Roman Abramovich with Wikipedia tricks and in exchange for donations for the construction of the Holocaust museum in Porto.
The "Russian" was a kind of “duck” and also the target of abstract anonymous denunciations claiming abstractly against an "orphan" (cit). This was the reason and the very beginning of the so-called investigation, a kind of game between socialist elites. The State corruption that the Community complains about lies in these facts, as well as the government's connections with the mental asylum to order anonymous letters and with nighttime robberies carried out by professionals who targeted a lawyer from the organization the day after the opening of the criminal inquiry and also the former president of SIRESP in the week she was dismissed by the socialist minister, who accused her of having links to Patrick Drahi's Altice. There was also a reported case of sabotage that could have resulted in the death of a young Jewish student couple.
In 2021, imbued with a "Palestinian issue," since there were so many Israeli applicants, socialist, communist, and other Soviet-leaning politicians orchestrated the end of legislation they did not want. The radical political Left and the Muslim Brotherhood despite everything that individual Jews and the Jewish Community are or produce. They are building Portugal in their own way. The political game against the law and the Community began in 2020, with the "Palestinian question" that united PS-PSD-PCP-BE and ended in 2025 by "parliamentary unanimity" and with the recognition of the "State of Hamas".
The State is sovereign and decides the value or lack thereof of its legal instruments, but to parade Abramovich, as a symbol, would not have made any sense if decency had prevailed, especially since the new Portuguese Jews belonged overwhelmingly to traditional Sephardic families from North Africa and the former Ottoman Empire, as was well demonstrated by the Gaza hostage crisis, and only rarely hailing from other places, but always evaluated in compliance with the applicable legal criteria.
If the legislation had to be forcibly called "a mess”, nothing could be more useful than a symbol with the name of a "Russian oligarch," transformed into a danger to the public, when in the light of the Jewish world that gentleman is neither an oligarch nor Russian.
In September 1941, Nazi forces took over the Mažintai forest in Lithuania to execute the entire Jewish community of Eržvilkas. The Abramovich family escaped martyrdom because they had been kidnapped months earlier and sent to Russian territory by order of Stalin, the "father of the peoples," who was dissatisfied with them. Nachman Leibovich Abramovich, the great philanthropist of the Lithuanian Jewish community, was put in a cattle cart sent to the heart of Siberia, where he would die the following year in camp No. 7 of Nizhniaya Poyoma. He had committed the crime of working hard in the fertilizer trade, flax cultivation, fiber trade, and property leasing. He owned a hotel, beer warehouses, restaurants, and vast properties in Tauragė. He was hunted down like an animal at his residence, on a private plot of 26 hectares that extended to the Šaltuona River, and forcibly placed on a train that departed for the depths of Siberia, a journey of thousands of kilometers, along with a hungry crowd of other Jews crammed into hermetically sealed wagons, where a large portion of souls succumbed to the cold.
For the Soviet regime, one of the most perverse machines that the Jews have known in three millennia considered Nachman a despicable capitalist, a usurper, and an enemy of the people. His nuclear family, also uprooted from their homeland, included his wife, Tauba Leja Berkover, and the couple's three children: Leiva, twelve years old, Abraham, eight, and Ahron, only five, who never saw the head of the family again. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, Tauba owned, before the described fatality, a large ship dedicated to the transport of goods and passengers between Kaunas and Klaipėda.
The fortune of the young couple was not insignificant at a time when 80% of Lithuanian ships belonged to Jewish families. In the autumn of 1940, the Soviet authorities nationalized the assets of the Jewish community. This is how Jewish property is always stolen, by decree. For months, exhausting physical labor was Nachman's only companion in a place where temperatures hovered well below zero degrees. He cut trees, pruned wood, and transported long logs to warehouses. He worked 12-hour shifts and received two rations a day along with half a liter of ice-cold water. The memory of Egypt was now without warmth. The result was the same. People died from exhaustion, lack of vitamins, dysentery, and work accidents. Communist slavery produced tons of corpses in that camp and many others, often piled into carts and dumped into mass graves. This was the fate of the most prominent figure of the Lithuanian Jewish community of the time and the source of sustenance for the most needy local families.
According to survivors of the camp, Nachman hoped to return to Lithuania with his beloved Tauba and their dear children, whose fate, although less tragic, was also painful. Uprooted from their land and the climate they were accustomed to, they soon found themselves without possessions, shelter, and food. They did not speak Russian and had landed in a completely unfamiliar place. Survival now depended solely on the mother. They faced the most complete misery in hostile territory. And yet, Tauba prevailed. During the day, she worked in a restaurant, and at night and on weekends, she made clothes, managing to gather clients among members of the Communist Party and their wives, as only that parasitic nomenclature possessed abundant wealth in those parts. The children, having overcome initial hunger and piercing bitterness, grew up healthy. Leiva and Abraham graduated from schools and technology institutes, and Ahron fell in love with music and soon began attending a suitable school and singing lessons. He played the violin and performed Lenski's arias, which could not have been more appropriate to the situation, given the need to mourn the loss of a great love – their father – and the transient fragility of human happiness.
The humbleness of the home Tauba cared for contrasted with a huge black grand piano, which she had managed to acquire, around which the children prayed for Nachman and, after his tragic death, for his soul of blessed memory. The mother raised the three children alone, in deep suffering. She never stopped writing to Soviet institutions asking for permission to return to Lithuania. The requests were rejected. She had been a very wealthy person and had to atone for her guilt until the end of her life. The last inglorious letter is dated 1957: "Painfully, I can no longer bear the northern climate. It has been 15 years since my husband passed away."
The remains of Nachman had long decayed in a mass grave. His brothers, Yosef, who left for the United States in 1902, and Mera, who went to South Africa in 1909, were more fortunate. They followed the usual path of a people of forced migrants in every generation, which continued until the founding of the Jewish state, and even after, as refugees from 11 Arab and Muslim countries poured in. Three siblings, each emigrating to a different distant destination in the early 20th century, clearly demonstrates the lack of sense in those who try to reduce the origins of Jewish families to simple formulas. This is especially so given that in addition to these permanent migrations there were marriages within indigenous Jewish communities, themselves composed of populations mixed under similar circumstances, amplified by the passage of centuries and successive generations.
The great-grandfather of Nachman, Wolf Abramovich (1745), bore the surname that traversed Eastern Europe from end to end and had long been recorded in lists of Iberian Sephardic Jews, notably among the members of the thriving Jewish community of Zamosc in 1580, including figures of great merit such as Samson Portugalensis, as noted in the "History of the Sephardim in Poland" by Dr. Gelber N. M. ("Otzar Yehudi Sepharad," Volume VI, published in Jerusalem in 1963). Nachman's grandfather, Ber Abramovich (1780), married Malca, and their son Leiva (1825), who married Hanna Rosa (1846), gave birth to Nachman (1884) – named after the Sephardic Kabbalist Nachmanides – who would marry Tauba Leja Berkover (1900), sister of Abel Benjamin (from the Hebrew Hebel and Binyamin), whose transport ship maintained the family tradition of maritime and river transport dating back to the Hanseatic League and Hamburg. Etymologically, Berkover, or Barkover, means precisely "boat owner" in Yiddish or, for those who prefer, "shipowner."
In addition to the many Sephardic names already listed, the Chabad of Lubavitch, the largest Jewish religious organization in the world, confirmed the longevity and permanence of Sephardic rituals in the Abramovich/Berkover family, including during Passover (Pesach), which stemmed from the centuries-old connection between the Jewish communities of Hamburg and Keidany. As early as the 17th century, Rabbi Jeheskel Katzelenbogen led the first community, and his grandson, Rabbi Dovid Katzelenbogen, led the second. Both were descendants of Rabbi Yosef Karo, who lived in Portugal and wrote a timeless work that is still necessary for the Jewish world today, Shulchan Aruch.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Ahron, the youngest son of Nachman and Tauba, married the gentle Irina Mikhaylenko Grutman, a piano teacher born in Ukraine in 1940. When the young couple tragically passed away, their son – Roman Abramovich – was orphaned and had to be raised by his uncles. However, he was destined to succeed. His work resulted in wealth and, from a Jewish perspective, the recovery of property stolen from the family, a series of expropriations that he himself would later experience, with houses, boats, and planes not being spared, without ever mentioning even slightly the past of his immediate ancestors, which was instead expunged as inconvenient so that a new "legal" theft could be carried out joyfully and without impediments. For three decades, socialists, communists, and liberals anchored in Bolshevik ideals and the philosophies of the Frankfurt School called him an "oligarch" and "Russian," giving him the same labels that had been imposed on his grandfather in the circumstances of time and place described above.
On July 16, 2020, with his Israeli passport, Roman Abramovich submitted a request to the Jewish community of Oporto for certification of his Sephardic origins, which had previously been affirmed by the local Chabad Lubavitch. With Lithuanian children, by right, the candidate would delight various elements of the established powers in Portugal who sought to put an end to legislation they did not want and saw the Jews of Portuguese origin as an obstacle to the moral and material enrichment of the homeland, as if they suffered from the same ills attributed to unqualified immigration in general. Months earlier, the granting of nationality to Jews of Portuguese origin had already been widely dishonored by joint initiatives of the socialist and communist parties, which accused Israeli citizens – typically holding dual or triple nationality, as confirmed by two hundred Hamas hostages – of obtaining "passports of convenience" in a scenario of distasteful publicity and specialized companies, which in Israel is a fact concerning dozens of possible nationalities, given the universal trajectories of that population, an extremely mixed Jewish population among itself, which has been the case for a long time. It is worth remembering, for example, that the co-founder of the United States of America, Haim Solomon, was from a Polish Ashkenazi family of Sephardic origin, who spoke Ladino and Yiddish.
Born from a request by the Portuguese Institute of Democracy to Deputy Carlos Zorrinho in 2012, and after hearings with members of the Portuguese Jewish communities, the Portugal-Israel Friendship Association, and the Network of Jewish Quarters, the 2013 law, with its generic wording, was directed at the "descendants of Jews" of Portuguese origin and added little, except in terms of notoriety, to the possibility, which had existed since 1981, of nationality being granted to any descendant of communities of Portuguese origin, without the legal obligation to reside in the country or speak Portuguese. Regulated the following year by the PSD/CDS government, the legislation that came into force in 2015 required – by way of example, as indicated by the term "namely" – family names, known genealogy, and family memory. And although the Jewish community of Oporto had suggested the establishment of an "international commission" to analyze the origins of the candidates, since it was overwhelmed with work to complete the rehabilitation of its majestic synagogue and prepare for the inauguration of a kosher hotel, the regulation determined that it would be up to a Portuguese Jewish community to issue a good-faith opinion on the origins of the candidates, which would also be verified by the registry office and, in the end, it would be up to the government to grant or deny nationality to the candidate in the exercise of its legal discretionary power.
The certificate for Roman Abramovich, issued by the Community, is dated August 24, 2020, and attests that his Lithuanian family has Sephardic origins, with names, surnames, and memories that confirm this. On August 30, 2020, six days later, the community informed the Prime Minister's office that the applicant and other Jews familiar with the business world could invest in Portugal. The following month, on September 16, 2020, the organization had an official meeting with the Minister of Economy regarding the same topic. Another month later, on October 19, 2020, a letter was addressed to the Minister of Justice suggesting that if the legislation were to be changed, it should safeguard cases like Roman Abramovich's. Four months later, on February 3, 2021, the community wrote to the government official responsible for justice, requesting an urgent declaration in the administrative process of the applicant, to avoid a scandalous case like that of a philanthropist from Hong Kong who, for five long years, was a victim of the inertia of a car registry office (yes, a car registry office) regarding her nationality request, who succumbed to a disease given the applicant’s advanced age and the length of time that had elapsed; a huge loss for the country. Finally, on April 30, 2021, the government granted nationality to Roman Abramovich, which was done urgently for reasons of national interest. It was a voluntary and informed action by the State, which could have decided otherwise.
Four years have passed since a terrorist campaign against a private organization began, using all means, including the invocation of a war which has nothing to do with the Jewish world, and the humiliation of a Jew of great merit, who did much for the Jewish and Israeli world, and is far from being evaluated by the uneducated; almost four years have passed since the respective certification process was sent to the competent authorities in Israel, as the most extreme “Portuguese National Union” did not want to hear even a word that would disturb the epiphany. However, the Community issued a good-faith opinion, as it was supposed to. The registry office had legal obligations that it surely fulfilled, and the government granted nationality to the person concerned not only urgently but also with the certainty that he and his offspring would not burden public schools and national health services in Portugal – quite the opposite.
When admirers of the Soviet flag in Portugal – with the sickle, hammer, and golden star on a red background – celebrated, laughed, and mocked the name they had invented, Abramovich da Silva, they could have been more practical and honest by using names like Abel, Rosa, Benjamin, Leiva, Leja, Paya or Rocha, which are real and did not spontaneously germinate in the Urals. The knowledge of the Jewish world completes any mere genealogical enumeration of names of Iberian origin, but these, by themselves, already undermine any thesis based on the ending "ich" (son of) that was obligatorily instilled in everyone in the East and the erroneous assumption that a Russian family is 100% Russian and is certainly populated by Demitris and Vladimirs.
From the widely proclaimed "Abramovich deal," it is worth noting the payment of the 250-euro fee by the "oligarch," while the Jewish community of Oporto donated a thousand times more (literally 250,000 euros) over the years to the Ukrainian and Russian communities overseen by the Chabad Lubavitch, of Portuguese origin, and with religious leaders of the same origin, starting with the Chief Rabbi of Kiev. Additionally, the community paid the taxes due on the "Russian" fee and even donated it in full to the registry office as a kind of Christmas gift. The only real problem occurred when the billionaire traveled to Portugal to receive his citizen card, as the lawyer instructed by the community to accompany him had to pay out of pocket the 300 euros required by the registry office, which also charges fees, as the interested party did not bring his wallet, if he ever uses it. The lawyer never asked for a refund, stating that she would have something valuable – the receipt – to show her grandchildren.
Roman Abramovich has long publicly revealed his interest in creating a foundation in Portugal to solidify his effective connection to the country and contribute to the Portuguese Jewish community, particularly in promoting Jewish heritage. He had previously contributed to such efforts in the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, American, and Israeli communities. However, he never managed to do so and even the historical films produced by the Jewish community of Oporto, all of them significant milestones of Portuguese Jewish heritage, were funded with the community's own resources, enriching Portugal's culture and internationalizing its history, which has had both good and bad moments. Because of this case of State corruption, Abramovich was never able to contribute to the community's cultural work. The film "1505 - The Lisbon Genocide," if it had been sponsored, would have been 90 minutes according its first script,
but it ended up being shortened to 20 minutes, as the Community was prevented from asking for support from Jewish benefactors, just as the future Jewish Museum of Lisbon dragged on, stalled and without sufficient funds for its construction. Patrick Drahi was also the target of "convenient" anonymous denunciations in the style of those that targeted Judge Ivo Rosa.
The accusations of tricks, of selling out their homeland, and unfair competition leveled against the Jews over time and throughout the world have never been true and have always deliberately silenced their vast good works, as if it were impure that, every Saturday night, that population would start working again with a vision for the future and dedication, not resting until the next Sabbath, much less spending Sundays eating, drinking, and gaining weight amidst psychological problems.
The community claims to have been the target of a case of Soviet antisemitism perpetrated by socialist politicians and states that they will face consequences they are far from imagining.
A complex collection of documented facts has been recorded that should never have occurred, with astonishing details, which sought to dishonor the entire human, cultural, and historical heritage of the most numerically, religiously, and culturally significant Jewish community in Portugal, in a festival that extended to crazy anonymous letters that even the Inquisition prohibited and to other "oligarchs," such as Andrey Rapaport, also a Portuguese national, also deserving of a good-faith opinion issued by the Jewish community of Oporto, also paying the 250-euro fee, also meeting the legal criteria, and, above all, also previously certified by the Chabad Lubavitch, which, after all, seems to know the stories of the Jewish families of the communities it oversees. The current Israeli ambassador to Portugal, grandson of a Rappaport, remembers his father's words: "We are from Oporto. Your grandmother's surname has in its root the words 'rabbi of Oporto'," which we can answer by saying "rofé of Oporto, doctor of Oporto," within the usual Jewish discussions.
Roman Abramovich inherited from the Jewish people a history that he repeated, and from his grandmother the resilience, labor, and passion for boats, and from his grandfather the entrepreneurship and Jewish philanthropy, particularly for the Chabad Lubavitch, headquartered in New York, and not by chance founded by a grandson and student of Rabbi Baruch Portugali, who lived in Poznan, Poland, where among many Iberian Sephardim there was a street named after the country of Dom Afonso Henriques and Yaish Ben Yahia, to whom much of Portugal's former economic, scientific, and military greatness is owed.
Considering that a barometer of democracy in the modern world has been the way the Jewish community is treated, it would be advisable for the Portuguese state to reflect on the fairness of the philosophies of its agents and improve the state of the supposed division of powers in society, especially the four major ones, which together symbolize Power. No one is interested in having third parties do it. It is a lesson from the past that Jews, when mistreated, do not fight in the limelight, but in history, which they document and do not forget.
Napoleon Bonaparte once heard voices of suffering emanating from inside a synagogue, where men and women, prostrated on the ground, marked the date of Tisha B'Av, lamenting the loss of the Temple of Jerusalem. Upon learning the reason for that weeping and mourning, the Emperor exclaimed that a nation capable of remembering with pain its defeats that occurred millennia ago cannot be defeated.
