As Rabbi Daniel Litvak stepped out of the cab at the airport in Porto one Thursday morning last March, a cluster of plainclothes Portuguese cops swarmed him. His son, Malkiel, watched in shock as more than a dozen men halted traffic, seized bags, and bundled his father into a vehicle, speeding off without explanation.
To Malkiel, it looked like a kidnapping. They drove Litvak three hours south to their headquarters in Lisbon, where they booked him, photographed him, and placed him in a cell for the night, according to Litvak, alongside a man from Pakistan arrested for attempted murder and a local arrested for armed theft.
The eventual charges against Litvak included document forgery, influence peddling, and money launderingβand he was arrested, he was told, based on an anonymous tip that he was trying to leave the country. The building fell into disrepair until this century, when legislation to offer citizenship to those with Portuguese Jewish descent accelerated the revival of the Jewish community.
Yoel Zekri, a young French Israeli dentist who moved to the city in , was in the synagogue that Friday, working to prepare the Shabbat meal. Around 9 a. Zekri spotted a highly recognizable name on the papers mentioned as probable cause, though the person had never set foot in the synagogue.
It belonged to a Jewish man who had recently been granted Portuguese citizenship: Roman Abramovich. The European Union followed suit five days later. But Abramovich was ahead of the game. In July , the oligarch had certified his heritage as the descendant of Jewish people long ago expelled from Portugal; by the following April, he had consequently gained Portuguese citizenshipβand thereby the possibility of lifelong residency in the European Union, as well as the ability to challenge European sanctions imposed on him.
