A Jewish politician from Brazil said he would sue a colleague for suggesting he was a Nazi. Isaac Tayah, president of the city council of Manaus, said he would file charges in a federal court for racism, libel and defamation, according to A Crtitica, a Brazilian news site. Earlier this month, councilman Mario Frota published…
Family legend has it that, when my parents got married, my paternal grandmother hired the newlywed couple a maid. How sweet, thought my mother. That is, until she found out the maid also doubled as a spy so that my grandma could make sure her daughter-in-law — a shiksa! — wouldn’t buy bacon and other…
Living in a small Brazilian village an hour’s drive from the northeastern city of Recife, it’s easy to forget the rhythms of the outside world. We had barely finished cleaning up from the revelry of Carnival, when an email arrived to remind me of the onset of Purim and that the costume wearing, drinking in…
After a recent short hospital stay, the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer is back to work at age 102. Despite many reiterated online claims by Brazilian Jews to the contrary, Niemeyer is not Jewish. Of mixed German-Italian ancestry, Niemeyer did work with the Brazilian Jewish architect Elias Kaufman on his most famous project, Brazil’s capital city…
My boyfriend is Brazilian. To look at him you’d probably think he was Middle Eastern, with his dark complexion. He speaks with an American accent that is very South Florida, but none-the-less he was born in Brazil. Last week for no particular reason I wanted to surprise him with a Brazilian inspired meal. However, most…
Brazil is not only home to the Jules Rimet trophy, Copacabana beach, Carnaval and the frighteningly militarized favelas portrayed in “City of God,” it’s also the location of an old and respected Yiddish community. Now Jose de Abreu is making a Yiddish-speaking film — “Where Pigs Eat Oranges” — about Jewish immigration from Czarist Russia…
Brazilian Jews are angry at the Viradouro samba school for its plans for a Holocaust- themed Carnival float, complete with sculpted piles of dead bodies. The school defended its float. Reuters reports: “The float is extremely respectful, it’s a warning, it’s something shocking that we don’t want to happen ever again,” said Paulo Barros, Viradouro’s…
