RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A statue honoring Brazil’s first black clown was vandalized with a swastika at a public park. Police have no suspects in the vandalism this week of the statue of Benjamin de Oliveira in the city of Para de Minas. Known as the most famous clown in Brazil in the first…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The Rio Jewish federation apologized for a Facebook post which called on the Jewish community to root against a Chilean soccer team founded by Palestinians slated to play against Brazil’s most popular team. The federation’s official Facebook profile with nearly 30,000 followers on Wednesday displayed the flags of the Flamengo and…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A German-Israeli settler who fled to Brazil after killing a Palestinian will be extradited to serve his sentence in the Jewish state. Brazil’s Supreme Court decided unanimously on Wednesday to accede to an Israeli request to extradite Yehoshua Elitzur back to Israel to serve a prison sentence for killing Palestinian…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The Kahal Zur Israel, the oldest synagogue in the Americas, has become the first Jewish site to join a Brazilian governmental tourism project. The synagogue is the only non-Christian temple to join the “Sacred Recife” project, which includes another seven churches, chapels and basilicas in the city of Recife, located…
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…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A Brazilian Jewish congressman was accused by one of his party’s colleagues of Nazi behavior for recommending criminal charges against Brazil’s president. “I will never bow to anyone when the offense pleaded against me is a racist atrocity alluding to my religion, though concealed by a play on words. I…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The mayor of Rio de Janeiro laid the cornerstone of a long-awaited Holocaust memorial in Brazil’s second-largest city. “The greatest homage we can render to the six million victims of the Nazis is to shout to the world: Holocaust, never again!” said Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella during Friday’s ceremony, quoting…
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Brazil’s newly-appointed ambassador to Israel has praised the Israeli duo Static & Ben El Tavori, whose latest hit, with a title in Portuguese, has taken the Jewish state by storm. Titled “Tudo Bom,” or “Everything is good” in Portuguese, the song has become a summer hit in Israel. The lyrics, full…
