Next March 3rd marks the fourth anniversary of the death of Eliezer Beigel Z”L. It was the Hebrew month of Adar in the year 5782. Eliezer was a prominent elder of the Jewish Community of Porto. He was a student of Barros Basto, from whom he learned Hebrew over coffee tables. He was president of the Community on several occasions and was the son of former president Nathan Beigel Z"L – who arrived from Poland in 1927.n 2012, Eliezer was part of the Community's Board of Directors that fully rehabilitated the Kadoorie synagogue and congregation, laying the foundations for the religious and cultural work that the institution would carry out in the following years.

In 2013, at a meeting with Tzipora Rimon, then Israel's ambassador to Portugal, Eliezer explained that “Barros Basto was destroyed by anonymous letters from individuals who couldn't confront him directly, and the Portuguese State took advantage of the opportunity to destroy the community. In the synagogue, my father placed a policeman in the basement to live for years and years, so the State wouldn't believe anonymous letters against us.” And, to Ambassador Tzipora's astonishment, Eliezer concluded: "From my father's experience, he always said: in Porto, if you do something, the State cuts your head off."

In 2019, at a meeting with the president of B'nai B'rith International, Charles Kaufman, Eliezer said, “I don't want to be president of B'nai B'rith Portugal because I don't think I have the competence. You should choose someone else, perhaps a lady, perhaps Isabel if she's available. I'm already old and I shouldn't be long before I die.”

In 2020, he wrote a letter to the Kadoorie family and recounted one of his funny stories. “When I was president, I took a business trip to Macau and called Lord Lawrence Kadoorie to say hello. I told him I was leaving for Europe, and he replied: 'Well, then postpone the trip, because tomorrow I want you at my house for lunch.' And off I went to Hong Kong.”

In 2021, before the then Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löfven, who had a working meeting with the Community's leadership, Beigel briefly recounted the history of the Jews of Porto: “My father was the president who succeeded Barros Basto, but the community never managed to recover after he was expelled from the army. Basto had a creative mind that the other members didn't have and never had. We didn't have strategists or intellectuals. The few members we had were merchants who only knew how to buy for two to sell for three.”

A man of great talent and with an impressive sense of humor, Eliezer Beigel did not live a life in vain. He left behind memories for posterity.

"In 1981, in Hong Kong, Lawrence Kadoorie asked me what it was like to preside over the synagogue. I replied that the synagogue was empty and that I was merely its custodian. After Barros Basto, only emptiness existed."

"The Holocaust museum was the best idea the Board of Directors could have had. The more Portuguese teenagers visit it, the better. We can't count much on today's adults."

"The Jewish museum is an inspiration, but don't put my picture there; my father's picture is enough. We must be discreet in life and in death."

On December 21, 2021, Eliezer Beigel left the Board with a forceful warning: "That news in the newspapers about a Russian oligarch is meant to destroy everything we've done. It's always the same. Bendov was called a Bolshevik by the Lisbon newspapers, and Mr. Oppenheim was called a Nazi. Beware.”

Beigel died on March 3, 2022. A week later, the synagogue where he grew up was illegally raided by twenty Lisbon police officers. The State was celebrating. The politicians were euphoric. The newspapers were amazed. The Community experienced the same thing it had in 1937, 1618, and 1497.

Eliezer Beigel was right. He was always right.