Several films produced by the Jewish Community of Porto explicitly document how Portuguese elites historically instigated local populations against Jewish communities.
"1506, The Lisbon Genocide" details how the pogrom did not happen in a vacuum, but was incited by elites, who scapegoated Jews and incited the population into a three-day slaughter.
"1618". An award-winning film depicting the horrors of the Inquisition in Porto illustrates the persecution of Jewish communities driven by the institutional elites of the era.
"Sefarad" highlights the persecution of Captain Barros Basto who was wrongfully slandered, falsely accused, and dismissed by the dictatorship then ruling Portugal.
"Soviet-Style Antisemitism in Portugal" short film exposed a state scheme to incite the population against the Jewish community and a law in favor of Jews.
Throughout history, state elites have frequently incited populations against Jewish communities, often by utilizing Jews as convenient scapegoats during periods of political, economic, or social crisis.
This tactic of state-sponsored scapegoating is deeply documented across multiple eras and regions. The states ofen transformed long-standing prejudices into systematic legal segregation, expropriation of property, and eventually, the genocide.
The destruction of Jewish identity and religion in the USSR was systematically achieved through decades of state-sponsored atheism, the closure of synagogues, and the banning of Hebrew and Yiddish culture. Successful Jewish businessmen were killed in Siberia, while the most prominent Jewish intellectuals and writers who were killed by the Soviet regime—such as the victims of the \(1952\) Night of the Murdered Poets—were executed in Moscow
The most extreme example occurred in the 1930s and 1940s, when the Nazi state utilized the full power of its apparatus, including radio, newspapers, and education, to incite the German and European populace against Jews.
It is exceptionally difficult for states or non-state actors to attack a Jewish community—whether in Israel or the diaspora—without facing a significant response today. The creation of Israel ensures that such actions typically trigger substantive consequences.
