Fake News: Israelis Queued to Receive Portuguese Citizenship

On 28 November 2025, the Portuguese Embassy in Israel held a special “walk-in” day at Cinema City Glilot. According to The Times of Israel, the event was branded “Old times are back” and allowed people to come in person to book an appointment with the embassy, bypassing the chronically overloaded online booking system. The line stretched from the cinema entrance all the way down into the underground parking area.

Crucially, the embassy advertised the event on its official Facebook page as “open to all Portuguese citizens.” The consular staff were there to schedule slots for December and January for two very specific things:

Renew Portuguese passports
Renew or issue Portuguese citizen cards (Cartão de Cidadão)

Yes, some people in line also wanted to start nationality processes, but the embassy’s own communication framed the event as service for existing Portuguese citizens – including many dual nationals living in Israel – not a one-day mass naturalisation fair.

On its official website, the Embassy of Portugal in Tel Aviv explains that it has moved almost all services to an online appointment platform and that it is “steadily increasing the available vacancies to the public, due to the increased Portuguese Community in Israel,” especially for passport and citizen card appointments.

In other words: what we saw in those photos was a bottlenecked consular system being briefly moved offline, not a sudden discovery of Portugal by desperate Israelis.

Did thousands of Israelis suddenly decide to become Portuguese?

Short answer: no. The line reflects logistics, not a new political wave.

A few key facts help put things in perspective:

The special nationality track for descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, created as a form of historical reparation in 2015, has been in force for a decade and is now mostly closed or heavily restricted after reforms in 2022 and 2024.
Since 2015, Portugal has received over 130,000+ applications under this Sephardic regime, and more than 50–70,000 people have already been granted citizenship through it, according to data cited by Jewish and Portuguese sources.
Israelis have indeed been one of the most active groups. In 2021, they accounted for around 19,500 applications, or roughly 65% of all applications that year; in 2023, Portugal confirmed that nearly 21,000 Israelis applied for citizenship in a single year.

Community estimates – combining official figures, pending applications and other nationality routes – point to on the order of 150,000 Jews worldwide who now hold Portuguese citizenship, out of a global Jewish population of 12–15 million. That is about one percent of world Jewry. Most of these new citizens never appeared in any line in Tel Aviv: their applications were processed directly in Portugal, often via lawyers and Jewish communities in Lisbon or Porto.

From the embassy’s side, officials have indicated that the number of nationality cases handled directly by the tiny consular team in Tel Aviv is relatively small – in the low hundreds over the lifetime of the law. The bulk of the work is done by central authorities in Portugal.

So when social media captions scream “everyone is now trying to become Portuguese,” they are simply not supported by the numbers.

Who are these “new Portuguese” in Israel?

Because of the Sephardic law and other ancestry-based routes, roughly 150,000 Jews worldwide – many of them in Israel – have become Portuguese in recent years. Most had family roots in the Sephardic communities that were expelled or forcibly converted in Portugal more than 500 years ago.

This is not unique to Portugal. Israelis commonly hold Polish, Romanian, German, Hungarian or other European passports based on ancestry rules in those countries, which – like Portugal – have tried to repair historic injustices or reconnect with their diasporas.

For the vast majority of these dual nationals, Portugal is a legal and emotional anchor, not necessarily a place they plan to move to tomorrow. Israel remains a high-income country with a nominal GDP per capita of around $60,000+, compared with roughly $30,000 in Portugal.

Put bluntly: most Israelis are not about to swap Tel Aviv for Lisbon – at least not for economic reasons alone.

How many will actually move to Portugal?

Everything suggests that only a small minority of “new Portuguese” Israelis will ever make Portugal their main home:

Community and industry estimates point to thousands, not tens of thousands, of Israelis actually relocating or spending substantial time in Portugal.
A survey conducted by ThePortugalPost among Israeli newcomers indicates that:
1. Most are highly educated professionals – in tech, finance, academia or creative industries – and bring significant skills and capital.
2. Many work in or build companies that connect Israel’s tech ecosystem with Portugal’s growing digital economy, including startups co-founded by Israelis and Portuguese partners.

Portugal has been promoting itself as a tech and startup hub, and Israelis with experience in cybersecurity, SaaS, AI and medical technology are part of that story, rather than a threat to it.

Integration, not cultural takeover

Some commentary around the viral queue photos hinted at fear that “too many Jews” or “too many Israelis” might somehow “change” Portugal. That narrative misunderstands both Judaism and the profile of this migration.

Judaism is not a missionary religion. It does not actively seek converts; in fact, traditional Jewish law makes conversion a demanding and lengthy process.
Jewish communities in Portugal today tend to be small, diverse, and focused on everyday life: work, family, synagogue, business. The pattern historically has been one of blending into local society while maintaining religious and cultural identity, not reshaping host countries in their own image.

Most Israeli–Portuguese dual nationals in Portugal today are entrepreneurs, remote workers and students who are adding to the social and economic fabric, not replacing anyone.

The embassy’s real problem: too many citizens, too few slots

If the Cinema City queues aren’t proof of a sudden citizenship rush, what are they?

They are a sign of a small embassy that suddenly has a lot more citizens to serve.

The Embassy of Portugal in Tel Aviv explicitly mentions the “growing Portuguese Community in Israel” and announces that it is increasing vacancies for passports and citizen cards to cope.
Portugal uses a centralized online appointment system for consular services worldwide. Like in several other countries, that platform has been overwhelmed by demand and, at times, affected by automated scripts or “bots” grabbing every available slot the moment they appear.

To deal with this, the embassy organised a one-off in-person registration day – a throwback to the pre-digital era – so that people could line up and reserve an appointment without fighting the bots online. They did not fully anticipate just how many dual nationals in Israel had expired citizen cards and passports and had been unable to renew them for months or years.

Hence the images: thousands of people, many already Portuguese for years, finally getting a chance to regularise their documents.

A law of historical repair, now mostly closed

It’s important not to lose sight of what the Sephardic nationality law was meant to do.

The law – passed in 2013 and implemented from 2015 – recognised the descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews expelled during the Inquisition and gave them a right to reclaim Portuguese nationality as an act of historical justice.

Like any law, it was imperfect. The high-profile case of Roman Abramovich, who obtained Portuguese citizenship through the Sephardic route, sparked intense debate and investigations into potential abuses and opaque vetting.

In response, Portugal:

Tightened requirements in 2022 (demanding stronger links to Portugal), and
Approved new rules in 2024 that effectively ended the old, more accessible regime and replaced it with a much narrower, residence-based path.

Many in both the Portuguese and Jewish communities see the closing of this historical track as regrettable – it aligned Portugal with countries like Germany, Poland or Romania that also restored citizenship to descendants of those unjustly stripped of it.

So, were Israelis really queuing “to get Portuguese citizenship”?

No – at least, not in the way the viral headlines suggest.

The people at Cinema City were mostly existing Portuguese citizens or already-approved dual nationals, trying to book appointments to renew long-expired documents.
The total number of Jews who have become Portuguese is large in absolute terms but small in global context – roughly one percent of world Jewry.
Only a small fraction of those are likely to move permanently to Portugal, and those who do are overwhelmingly highly educated, economically active, and well integrated.

Portugal did not suddenly become the escape hatch for “masses of Israelis.”
It simply did, for a time, what other European countries already do: return citizenship to descendants of those it once wronged.

The long lines in Israel tell a story, but it’s not one of panic or invasion.
It’s a story about history, diaspora, digital bureaucracy – and a small embassy trying to serve a surprisingly large community of new Portuguese citizens abroad.