RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A Brazilian journalist who was elected LinkedIn’s #1 voice in 2016 is starring in a campaign to reinforce the Jewish identity among members of Latin America’s second largest Jewish community. Marc Tawil, 43, spoke about the Jewish influences in his life and career in a 10-minute-long video in Portuguese as part of…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Vandals spray painted a swastika inside a Star of David on the entrance wall of a Jewish sports club located on a busy avenue in Rio. The Nazi symbol, drawn backwards, appeared inside the three-foot-tall Jewish symbol that identifies the Brazilian Israelite Club, a Jewish institution attended by Jews and non-Jews and whose doors…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The mayor of Rio de Janeiro said in an interview that his city’s residents must be inspired by the memory of Israel’s late former president and prime minister, Shimon Peres. “The Cariocas must be inspired by Peres,” Mayor Marcello Crivella told O Globo newspaper, using the term to describe Rio’s native residents….
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — American Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson met with Brazilian President Michel Temer and several government officials to pitch an $8 billion casino project in Rio de Janeiro. Adelson’s visit this week raises rumors of imminent gambling law approval in Latin America’s largest nation, where it has been outlawed for the last…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The mayor of Rio de Janeiro spoke up for Israel before some 2,000 people during a celebration of Israel’s Independence Day which made news on Brazil’s main weekly primetime TV show. Marcelo Crivella, whose four-year term started in January, has been a longtime friend of the Jewish community and an enthusiast of…
When a Jewish sports and social club in Rio de Janeiro hosted Jair Bolsonaro, a rising far-right politician known for his open bigotry, he didn’t disappoint. As some 200 protesters outside Hebraica chanted, “those who incite torture have forgotten the Shoah,” Bolsonaro, who has indicated he intends to run for president next year, faced some…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A Brazilian Jewish federation will provide educational support to a private school in the country’s northeast where a classroom was decorated with Nazi flags during a lesson on totalitarian regimes. Students and history teachers from Santa Emilia School in Recife will visit the Kahal Zur Israel temple, the first synagogue…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Latin America’s largest synagogue, the 2,000-family Congregacao Israelita Paulista in Brazil, has inaugurated its first female rabbi. Some 200 people attended the welcome ceremony for Rabbi Fernanda Tomchinsky-Galanternik held last week at the 80-year-old Sao Paulo temple, also known by the acronym CIP. Ordained in December in Argentina, the Brazilian-born…
