A recent affordable housing demonstration in the Portuguese city of Porto quickly turned into a show of antisemitism, the Porto Jewish community said this week.
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Among the many demonstrators who flooded the city's streets to demonstrate against the painful economic issue were those carrying antisemitic signs calling for "cleansing the world of Jews," "not to rent a house from Zionist murderers," "We want a home to live in and Palestine is liberated," and "Not Haifa and not Boavista, no to a Zionist capital!"
"To march for hours through the streets of Porto in an organized demonstration, in the city with the country's largest Jewish community and where decent and good Jewish businessmen live, and to carry antisemitic signs with messages whose call for violence is unquestionable, is not a private matter of one person or another but discrimination, incitement to violence and hatred, acts against which the police must act immediately," Gabriel Senderowicz, president of the Porto Jewish community, told Portuguese media.
"One sign compared the city of Haifa to the neighborhood of Boavista where the community's synagogue is located. Another sign referred to Jewish homeowners, which constitutes a real attack against the Jewish and Israeli residents of the city. In a country of 10 million people with only 5,000 Jews, most of whom arrived in the country in the last decade, the Jewish minority is once again accused of violating the basic rights of the Portuguese, such as the right to affordable housing," Senderowicz said.
The local synagogue was vandalized three days after the Hamas Oct.7 massacre. Unknown assailants spray-painted pro-Palestinian slogans on the front of the synagogue: "Free Palestine" and "Apartheid."
Israel's Ambassador to Portugal Dor Shapira also expressed shock at last Saturday's show of hatred.
Shapira told local media that he "supports free speech, but these demonstrations are exploited to spread antisemitic, racist and hateful ideas. And that's exactly what these signs say. It must be a red line that must not be crossed within the limits of freedom of expression."
