On Wednesday 17th, 2024 the Tel Aviv Diaspora Museum presented a preview of the film "1506 - The Lisbon Genocide", followed by a debate moderated by Alex Traiman, Editor in Chief of the Jewish News Syndicate. Speakers included Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israeli Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, Raheli Baratz-Rix, Head of the Department for Combating Antisemitism and Enhancing Resilience of the World Zionist Organization, and Ashley Peretz, President of the "Reconectar" Association that promotes the reconnection between the descendants of the Sephardic Jews and the Jewish world.

Tomorrow, 19th April is the anniversary of the start of the massacre which for three days assassinated about three thousand Jews in Lisbon. The bonfires went as high as the houses, in a city filled with quartered bodies where heads were paraded on the points of spears.

The Jewish community of Oporto, Portugal, presents today at midnight a free documentary film online about these events, in English, Hebrew, French, Spanish and Portuguese.  The film aims to show that the October 2023 massacre did not happen in a vacuum. There has always been a mix of stereotypes, fanatical joy and terrorism of the quartering in the massacres that for two millennia targeted the Jews in such different locations as Alexandria, Granada, Seville, Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Basel, Überlingen, Strasburg, Cologne, Worms, Erfurt, Metz, York, Norwich, Trent, Troyes, Bern, Paris, Odessa, Moscow, Hebron and recently the border areas of southern Israel.

Premiere in Tel Aviv, quotes. 

Dr. Raheli Baratz (Rix), Head of the Department for Combating Antisemitism and Enhancing Resilience in the World Zionist Organization:
"Exactly like the plague in the movie shown, there are lots of new conspiracy running in the social media today that is based on our customs or Ideologies - they are ridiculous accusations there is no truth in them . Right now, after October 7th, we are getting more than 100 such complaints every day, when in the past, we used to receive 40 of them in a week, these numbers are extremely high. We need to put a serious effort into social media to denounce these messages and win this war".

Ashley Perry (Perez), President of “Reconectar”, an organization that seeks to reconnect with the over 200 million descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities, spoke about how both pogroms affected his family, with the Lisbon Massacre propelling his ancestors to leave the Iberian Peninsula and losing a nephew, Roey Weiser, on October 7th.

“Eradicating Antisemitism as a concept is the closest thing to impossible, but success in the war in the court of public opinion is possible. The first rule of any campaign is that if you are reacting you are losing. Israeli propaganda is only reactive and tactical. Our opponents determine the discourse and agenda on Israel and the conflict, and we merely respond.”

Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism:

"We can't fight something without identifying it and we can't identify anything without first defining it. When I am asked what can be done, I answer that the first thing that needs to be done - in international institutions, in counties, in cities, in universities, in social media spaces, is to adopt and implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. This is the only way to begin to identify and combat antisemitism in ALL its forms, including Anti-Zionism, the ‘modern’ strain of an ever-mutating hatred. The alarming tsunami of antisemitism in RESPONSE to the 10/7 massacre by genocidal terrorists is the result of decades of systematic demonization, delegitimization and double standards that not only denies the individual Jew an equal place in society, but denies Israel, Jew among the nations, an equal place in the family of nations. As this unleashed hatred rages around the world, it is critical to recognize that antisemitism is a security threat to all the places and spaces places in which it festers and spreads”

Alex Traiman, Editor of the Jewish News Syndicate: “The mainstream media hasn’t proved itself to be a reliable source of information, we all remembered the false reports that Israel bombed a hospital. Of course, it was quickly proven that Israel did not bomb the hospital. But if you go to google even now you’ll find hundreds of headlines reporting on this false incident as if it was true”.