Brazilian Jews Call For Boycott Of Anti-Israel Imam

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Brazil’s leading Jewish organizations have called for a boycott of a Muslim cleric who openly preaches the destruction of Israel slated to lecture in Sao Paulo.
Shiite Ayatollah Mohsen Araki was announced as keynote speaker at an Arab-led event titled “Muslims and the fight against radical terrorism” to be held on July 29 in South America’s largest city.
“We cannot allow the import of the conflict to our lands, as well as the speech of hatred and discrimination, taking into account the harmony between our Arab and Jewish communities,” read a B’nai B’rith’s note released on Wednesday.
The international Jewish human rights group, which has been working in Brazil for 85 years, also stressed the fact that Latin America’s largest nation defends the two-state solution and called for Brazilian government to speak up.
“Hate speeches only ignite worrisome sparks in our country,” said Bruno Laskowsky, president of the Sao Paulo Jewish Federation.
Congressman Jean Wyllys, an openly gay activist who has positioned himself against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS movement against Israel since he recently visited the Jewish state, posted a comment about the cleric titled “No to fundamentalism” on his Facebook page liked by nearly 1.3 million followers.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO