 Portuguese Jewish scholar and economist Moses Amzalak, leader of the Lisbon Jewish community for more than fifty years (from 1926 until 1978), believed that Nazis were defending Europe from communism.Later, when Nazi anti-Semitic policies became evident, Amzalak got actively involved in rescue operations leveraging his friendship with Salazar.Yad Vashem historian Avraham Milgram says that modern anti-Semitism failed "to establish even a toehold in Portugal" while it grew racist and virulent elsewhere in early twentieth-century Europe.