The decision was made a year and a half ago. The Portuguese PSD/CDS government has expressly recognized the clear "cultural interest" of the Porto Jewish Community project in its multiple dimensions, including education, the internationalization of Portuguese culture, and the revitalization of the national Jewish community.
The performance of the previous government – of a socialist and radical communist bent – which was in power for almost a decade, was not positive. It called the strongest Jewish community in Europe in cultural terms opulent and poorly managed; they called the granddaughter of the Portuguese Dreyfus and a leader married to a Chief Rabbi of Israel "non-professors of the Jewish faith"; and they saw wealthy Jews of Portuguese origin living thousands of kilometers away as a threat. Those who could have solved the problems of the Portuguese economy and the continental shelf were called suspicious and undesirable, as well as the thousands of Israeli workers who could have been ambassadors for Portugal. A "palestinian question" has deleted a law that granted them Portuguese nationality.
Although the political and media mainstream has not changed substantially between one government and another – as evidenced by the inauguration of the Hamas embassy and the elimination of that hated law – the current PSD/CDS alliance wishes to transform a legacy of persecution into a strategic advantage for the Portuguese State, whether in culture, the economy, or diplomacy with all the superpowers of the contemporary world.
Portugal today has the largest Chabad center in Europe and is home to the only Jewish community on the continent that manages two museums, produces historical films, and brings together all the country's schools in its educational plans, while also overseeing the two synagogues from which real and uninterrupted Jewish life has emanated for more than a decade in the country founded by Dom Afonso Henriques and Yaish ben Yahia.
