Thirty embassies and the book “The Abramovich Case: Who Tried to Kill the Young French Jewish Leader Ilan Cohen?”

Thirty embassies and the book “The Abramovich Case: Who Tried to Kill the Young French Jewish Leader Ilan Cohen?”

United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, China, India, Russia, Ukraine, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Brazil are some of the embassies and diplomatic representations in Portugal that deserve consideration.

The CIP/CJP's president Gabriel Senderowicz offered everyone the curious Amazon book titled “The Abramovich Case: Who Tried to Kill the Young French Jewish Leader Ilan Cohen?”

"The book examines the convergence between segments of the progressive left and movements of political or radical Islamism, described as the “Red-Green Alliance,” and their hostility toward Israel and Jewish activity", Senderowicz wrote, adding that "Drawing on the events that took place in Portugal in 2022, the book alleges the use of political, media, and judicial power against Jewish individuals and institutions — matters that the Community believes deserve scrutiny and a place in the historical record."

On November 28, 2022, the young French Jewish leader Ilan Cohen was the first signatory of a petition that 44 French students sent to the Portuguese parliament. The student's petition – which was reported in the international Jewish press on the same day it was sent – asked the Portuguese State never again to illegally attack a Jewish community, as it had done months before with the one in Porto, and do never again to cooperate with the nocturnal burglars who robbed the president of SIRESP (Integrated System for Portugal's Security and Emergency Networks) and law offices to steal a server and computers, and with anonymous whistle-blowers who have spent time in psychiatric hospitals and sentenced in the criminal courts, in an attempt to incriminate people. Cohen stated to the Jewish News Syndicate that "The discrimination of the inquisition, was not enough for them to stop there!"

On November 29, 2022, a tire on Ilan Cohen's car was carefully punctured so as to be on the verge of bursting while he was having dinner at a kosher restaurant in Porto. After dinner, he went home on the highway, where speeds reached about 120km/h, and "miraculously the tire did not burst", Cohen said to The Portuguese Jewish news at the time. "Taking the VCI (highway), my car had trouble driving, and I was very lucky, I stopped and saw stab wounds in my tires." He also suspected that the authorship of the attempt against his life came from "a criminal network to silence me through a fatal accident", as he had been studying in Porto for five years and it was the first time this happened.

Despite then Ilan Cohen filing a police report (Case number 2042/22.6PIPRT), he has received no news about the matter to this very day. The authorities have not even notified him to be questioned as the whistleblower. Meanwhile, the damaged tire is on display at the Jewish Museum in Porto, in a room dedicated to modern antisemitism.

This case begins with a multimillionaire usually portrayed in the press as a "Russian oligarch". Indeed, in December 2021, the so-called "Roman Abramovich case" became famous in Portugal, when the well-known billionaire became Portuguese. The political and media powers united as never before and ensured that he was Russian, Russian, Russian, of Russian, Russian, Russian, family, for thousands of years. No one admitted that the person in question could have – as the nationality law stipulated – ancestors with Portuguese names.

During this period of constant attacks, which extended throughout two years, the Jewish Community of Porto was unable to have a public voice. No one wanted to hear their version of the facts. The ferocity of the adversaries was tremendous. Portuguese socialists and communists, all with hammer and sickle in hand, pejoratively called the multimillionaire "Abramovich da Silva" and shouted agaisn't "the Russian oligarch", "Putin's friend", "war in Ukraine", "money, money".

The Portuguese persecutors punctuated their speech with the word Silva, a common Portuguese surname, to further mock the situation between laughter and accusations of corruption: "Abramovich da Silva, ah, ah, ah!"

Yet, the Portuguese names of the Roman Abramovich's family were not one (Silva), but seven (Rocha, Leiva, Leja, Rosa, Paya, Abel, Barkover), with the aggravating factor that the surname Abramovich itself had been recorded in Sephardic communities in the 16th century, shortly after the expulsions from Portugal and Spain.

To the Portuguese system’s bad faith toward the Jewish community was added its extraordinary ignorance: "What is Chabad-Lubavitch?" they would ask, astonished. Chabad-Lubavitch possesses a deep, unparalleled knowledge of the histories, genealogies, and backgrounds of prominent families within the Russian-Jewish community. As the dominant force in Russian-Jewish life, Chabad’s historical and operational structure allows it to maintain meticulous insight into the community's prominent lineages.

In addition, with the arrival of more French families in Porto over the coming weeks, the case of Ilan Cohen (a Cohen from Djerba) is set to attract even greater curiosity within the global Jewish community; it is certain that this matter will spark a great deal of discussion.