Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Orthodox Shul Opens Near Brazil’s Iconic Ipanema Beach

An Orthodox synagogue was opened officially a few blocks from the iconic Ipanema Beach in Brazil.

Some 1,200 people attended Sunday’s inauguration of the four-story, 440-seat synagogue in Rio de Janeiro named for Edmond Safra, the late Brazilian Jewish billionaire and philanthropist whose foundation funded much of the project.

The 20,000-square foot building, which replaces a much smaller synagogue, took some 25 years to be established. White stones for the building’s facade were shipped from Jerusalem.

The smaller shul, Agudat Israel, was built in the 1970s on the rear of another building. The congregation of some 1,000 families is made up mostly of Sephardic families originally from Syria and Lebanon.

The new complex includes mikvahs, a social hall, classrooms, a beit midrash and a recreation area, according to Shirley Nigri Farber, editor and publisher of the Shalom Magazine.

Last year, Ipanema, an upscale neighborhood that is home to many affluent Jews, and the adjacent coastal neighborhood of Copacabana received a new eruv, a demarcation of an area that permits observant Jews to carry objects on Shabbat.

Rio, Brazil’s second largest city, is home to between 35,000 and 40,000 Jews.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.