Protecting Jewish assets in Portugal: Porto's Jewish community names Jewish Agency as legal heir

The Jewish community of Porto, Portugal announced on Monday that it has chosen the Jewish Agency as its legal heir.  

This means that if the Porto community were to one day disband, the Jewish Agency would inherit any assets belonging to it. 

These include the community's synagogues, which include the largest synagogue in Iberia, the Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue. The community also has libraries, restaurants, a cinema, an art gallery, a cemetery, and museums, among which is the Jewish Museum of Porto.  

The agreement's procedure, which began in 2021, was undertaken to avoid situations in which the state or any other entity could arrogate the community's assets.

The community pointed to the looting of Jewish property during the Holocaust and the confiscation of assets from Middle Eastern and North African Jews before their expulsion as reasons for making this decision.

'No one knows what the world will be like'

Director of Porto’s Jewish and Holocaust museums, Michael Rothwell, said, “It is time for traditional Jewish optimism to look back and realize that the plundering of Jewish assets did not only happen in antiquity and the Middle Ages."

Rothwell noted, “We only need to go back a few years, to the 20th century, to remember that not only the Ashkenazi communities of central and eastern Europe but also many Sephardic communities, especially in Arab and Muslim countries, were stripped of their heritage and assets.”

He further stated of the move, “No one knows what the world will be like in a few years. This is a very important matter that must be addressed as quickly as possible. We call on other communities to follow suit.”

A monument was unveiled at the Jewish Museum of Oporto to mark the decision.