In the eyes of the state, at least publicly, neither community’s approach was necessarily more correct than the other, and for the first few years not a single official raised a red flag or published any complaints. Just 466 applications were logged in 2015, the first year of the program. By 2020, though, that number hit 34,876. The Sephardim had been the world’s first truly global Jewish community, ending up everywhere, from Libya to London, Hamburg to Mexico City. Folders filled with multilingual marriage certificates and photo albums flooded in from all corners.
By far the largest surviving number of Sephardim can be found in Israel. A bustling avenue to Portuguese citizenship rapidly developed there, with several corporations springing up to service the interest. “It was like a factory: 100 clerks, telephones,” recalls Leon Amiras, the vice president of the Israeli Bar Association, who was initially skeptical about having non-lawyers involved. He had personally helped a couple hundred Sephardim apply, following word-of-mouth referrals, from his office opposite the Waldorf Astoria in Jerusalem. But the more he saw of the larger operators, the more he grew to admire their seriousness and professionalism. They were, he says, “‘tak, tak, tak,’ first stage, second stage.…” He trails off to pull out his phone and show me several slick commercials produced by one such firm, called Portugalis.
Like Litvak, Amiras was born in Argentina. His grandparents had fled Turkey during an early 20th-century conflict with Greece, and he successfully gained Spanish and Portuguese citizenship thanks to Sephardic ancestors in both his parents’ families. But he told me his Portuguese certification from the community in Porto required far less documentation than the endless back-and-forth with the designated Jewish community in Spain. “The difference between the Portuguese procedure and the Spanish procedure is like when you have two girlfriends,” he explained with a hint of mischief. “One says ‘I really love, love you, want to be with you.’ The other says, ‘I’m not sure if I want you, if you want to be with me, I want flowers, I want a Rolex, I want this, I want this, I want this.’”
The subsequent deluge of citizenship and passport requests—the latter as proof of the former—began to outpace Portugal’s poorly staffed civil service, and delays mounted. By June 2020, foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva appeared before Parliament to ask for change. “There are an increasing number of people who come to that consulate,” he said, quoting a telegram from Portugal’s ambassador to Israel, “both to prepare applications and to collect their citizen cards or passports, who manifest complete ignorance about Portugal, its culture and history, even declaring they have no intention of visiting our country.” Israeli firms, he told lawmakers, had been advertising Portuguese citizenship applications during Black Friday sales. Such “prostitution,” he called it, of the country’s nationality “damaged Portugal’s international reputation.” Another lawmaker proposed adding a two-year residency requirement. Various Jewish communities began to worry that the right of return wouldn’t last much longer.
On July 16, 2020, an applicant with the Hebrew name of “Nachman ben Aharon” emailed the Porto community. “Dear Community,” he wrote in English. “I am a Sephardic Jew member of Sephardic community. Rabbi Boroda interviewed me and attested my Sephardic origin. Thank you, Roman.” Attachments included a birth certificate, a PDF file entitled “Letter from the Rabbi,” copies of Russian and Israeli passports, and a Microsoft Word document entitled “Roman Abaramovich [sic] Family tree.” It included two parents, Irina and Arkadiy, born in the USSR, and four grandparents, born in the “Russian Impire [sic].” One hour and 53 minutes later someone responded, “Shalom. Approved” and requested some information be sent in a different format.
Four days later, a SWIFT payment receipt shows Abramovich instructed his bankers at UBS in Switzerland to pay a “charitable contribution” of 250 euros to the Jewish Community of Porto’s account at the local subsidiary of Spanish banking giant Santander. It was the standard processing fee, which, multiplied across tens of thousands of applicants over several years, has helped Porto’s Jewish community accomplish a great deal, including feature films about Judaic history in Portugal, a moving Holocaust museum, and tours for schoolchildren. A few weeks later, Abramovich supplied the reformatted information and proof of payment. He also wrote, “I plan to donate you [sic] on the permanent basis for the long term.” His application was immediately passed to the Porto community’s back office. Gabriel Senderowicz, the community’s current president—using the pseudonym Berel Rosenstein, as he commonly did to avoid hassle from pushier applicants, he explained to me—alerted other members of the “support committee.” He suggested the group send an email of thanks, which was duly written and dispatched. (“Those who doubt Abramovich’s Sephardic origins do not know the law, do not know the case, or do not know both,” Senderowicz told VF.)
King João I established the city’s Jewish quarter in 14th-century Porto. His successors’ enforcement of the Inquisition led to the murder or expulsion of many Jewish citizens. iStock/Getty Images.
