Israeli-owned restaurant in Lisbon says it is closing due to antisemitism

An Israeli-owned restaurant in Lisbon says it will close this week due to the toll of rising antisemitism suffered by the business.

Tantura, a Mediterranean-style restaurant in the Portuguese capital launched 10 years ago by Israelis Elad Budenshtiin and Itamar Eliyahu, will close its doors for the final time this coming Saturday, the owners say on its social media pages.

“During the past three years, with the war and the alarming rise in antisemitism in the world, we found ourselves facing a hard and painful reality: graffiti smeared on the restaurant walls, blackening its good name online, hostile campaigns and a full-on boycott,” they write. “Bit by bit, the place that was supposed to be a space for connection and joy became an arena of daily struggle.”

As antisemitism skyrocketed all over the world in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, Jewish-owned businesses have frequently been targets of vandalism and other forms of harassment. In June 2024, the restaurant was spray-painted with the words “Tantura is a massacre, Free Palestine” by anti-Israel activists, according to local media.

We are deeply concerned by the forced closure of Tantura, a well-known Israeli restaurant in Lisbon, following years of sustained antisemitic targeting, harassment and intimidation.

That a cultural and culinary space dedicated to bringing people together has been driven out of… pic.twitter.com/33BUUAV4Qo

— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) January 8, 2026

Tantura is the name of a beach in northern Israel where a large number of Arabs were killed by Jewish forces during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. The owners have said they were unaware of that history when they opened the restaurant, saying they named it after “one of the most beautiful beaches in Israel.”

The owners do not say whether there are other reasons for the closure. They are now working to open a vacation resort outside the city, they say.