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…
Prominent Brazilian Holocaust survivor and longtime Jewish activist Aleksander Laks died at age 88. Laks died Tuesday of a lung infection, according to Brazilian news website Surgiu. Born in Poland in 1926, Laks was held in the Lodz ghetto, as well as Auschwitz and other concentration camps, between 1940 and 1945. In 1945, he fled…
A tropical storm in eastern Brazil devastated the Jewish cemetery of the State of Bahia. Jewish graves were destroyed when the torrential rain and winds brought down a massive tree atop the Jewish Cemetery of Bahia in Salvador on April 10, Luciano Fingergut, the Bahia community’s president, wrote in a statement earlier this week. The…
A large swastika was discovered painted on the bottom of a swimming pool in southern Brazil. The large Nazi symbol was identified during a kidnapping investigation last week, where police used aerial surveillance, CNN reported. The swastika is located on private property in Pomerode, Brazil in the southern state of Santa Catarina. It reportedly has…
A school in Rio de Janeiro published a public apology for an exam question that compared Israelis to Nazis. The geography exam for eighth-graders at Colégio Andrews included a question that said Jews were once chased by Hitler and today another people is victimized by the Israelis, who compel them to live under their rule…
Some 2,500 people rallied at the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro for peace in Israel and the Middle East. Participants of varying ages and types — Jews and non-Jews — marched along the promenade and in the street. They sang Hebrew songs, as well as the Brazilian and Israeli national anthems. Huge signs in…
Brazil’s Jewish community apologized to the administration of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff for statements by the spokesman of Israel’s foreign ministry after Brazil recalled its envoy over the Gaza conflict. Claudio Lottenberg, the president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation or CONIB, an umbrella body, apologized to Aloízio Mercadante, the Rousseff administration’s chief of staff, for…
Representatives of Brazil’s Jewish community said the government’s recall of its ambassador from Israel amounted to a defense of Hamas. The statement by CONIB, an umbrella body, came Thursday, a day after Brasilia announced that it was recalling for consultation its ambassador to Israel, Henrique Sardinha, to protest Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza. CONIB…
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