Anete Hulak is believed to be the oldest Jew in Brazil´s Recife.
She arrived in the small northeastern city in 1927 from Bessarabia (now Moldova), and remembers the Recife Jewish community´s heyday. Then there was a Jewish library, Jewish cultural center, a Yiddish theater and various other Yiddish-speaking groups.
Today, she laments, there are few with whom she can converse in Yiddish. She passionately insists, though, that Yiddish is imperative to the future of the Jewish people and adamantly believes it will make a comeback.
From Recife to Rio de Janeiro, stories like Hulak´s seem to epitomize the Jewish community of Brazil, in which, despite high rates of intermarriage and assimilation, Jewish identity remains deeply ingrained for many.
Fabio Oliveira, 31, lives in Porto de Galinhas, a resort community about a 45-minute drive from Recife. His father was Jewish; his mother is not. He had a bar mitzvah ceremony; carries with him a laminated card with the traditional traveler´s prayer in Hebrew, a gift from his mother; and wears his Judaism on his sleeve in the form of a large Star of David pendant around his neck and a signet ring with a Star of David.
As the marketing manager for a restaurant in Porto de Galinhas, an area with only a handful of Jews, he says he has little time to pursue anything Jewish and very rarely attends synagogue. It is his Catholic mother who taught him about Judaism and reminds him when the major holidays are coming up.
Oliveira doubts he´ll marry a Jewish woman, but says it is important that his children be Jewish.
Rabbi Henry Sobel, 57, leads a large thriving synagogue in Sao Paulo. With 1,800 families, Congregacao Israelita Paulista is the largest in the country, and Sobel believes it to be the largest in Latin America as well.
He literally bounces with excitement, or perhaps nervous energy, when he talks about his synagogue, which draws some 600-700 people every Friday night.
“I´m sorry I´m getting carried away,” says the former New Yorker, having ticked off a list of activities taking place at CIP nearly every night of the week. “
I´m shepping naches from my own shul,” adds the Reform-ordained rabbi who liberally sprinkles his comments with Yiddish and Hebrew, and is delighted to lead such an active congregation.
At 27, Ilana Belaciano, an assistant manager at the Hotel Inter-Continental Rio, is ready to settle down. But she worries about finding the proverbial nice Jewish boy.
“I´m finding it hard to meet a Jewish man,” she laments.
Her brother will soon be marrying a Catholic woman, in the first intermarriage in her family. “My grandmother´s reaction was not very good,” she says, noting her brother and his fiancee plan to bring up their children as Jewish.
“I´ve always had Jewish friends in school, and I think we should keep the religion because one day it´s going to be over,” says Belaciano, who attends synagogue when she can in hopes of meeting Jewish men. Although her family affiliates with two synagogues, she attends a third: the Chabad shul, which she says draws many young singles.
Boris Berenstein, 51, a successful radiologist who drives a Mercedes and is president of the Jewish federation in Recife, attended a Jewish school as a youngster.
A father of four, he is twice intermarried. “My wife told me that the best husband is a Jewish man,” he says about his second wife, who has volunteered in the Jewish school.
Hulak, Oliveira, Sobel, Belaciano and Berenstein represent the faces of Brazil´s Jewish community, a community that in many ways parallels that of American Jews.
Like U.S. Jews, Brazilian Jews live in a mixed population, perhaps one that has melted and blended more than the United States. And, like their U.S. counterparts, they worry about intermarriage, assimilation, continuity and the future of the Jewish community.
Their numbers are tiny. In a country that is 80 percent Catholic with a population of 170 million, the Brazilian Jewish community ranges from the American Jewish Year Book estimate of 97,000, to Berenstein´s high of 200,000. Most interviewed estimate the population at 110,000 to 130,000.
Sao Paulo with some 60,000 Jews is the largest community; other Jewish communities have just 20-30 Jews, or like Porto de Galinhas, just a handful.
What has happened in some of Brazil´s Jewish communities, says Rabbi Nilton Bonder, 43, of the 550-family Jewish Congregation of Brazil, a Conservative synagogue in Rio, is the Jewish population “shrinks so much that after awhile all the Jews go because that becomes a place where you can no longer raise Jewish children.”
Intermarriage, higher than among U.S. Jews, is estimated to range from 30 percent to 80 percent, with the lower number probably referring to affiliated Jews, Bonder says, the higher to unaffiliated.
Of late, Brazilian Jews´ worries have also extended to economics as the country´s economy suffers unemployment is at 6 percent and more Jews find themselves impoverished or with reduced standards of living.
Increasingly, Jewish day schools and synagogues are seeing families ask for reduced rates, financial aid and other services. There also are concerns that Argentina´s economic crisis could affect Brazil.
“Jews have always been very successful in many ways but for the first time we´re seeing a decline for many people. Many people are having to deal with unemployment,” says Bonder, who lives in a city where favelas, or slums, can be seen on the hillsides.
Brazilian Jews also care about what happens to Israel, and while they are adamant that there is no official anti-Semitism, they say there is anti-Israel sentiment and admit there are negative stereotypes about Jews.
Most Jewish facilities, like some non-Jewish ones, are surrounded by high concrete walls or fences. Rabbi Sergio Margulis, 39, of Temple ARI in Rio says the tight security dates back to the early 1990s, following the bombing of the AMIA in Buenos Aires. Many interviewed say the security has more to do with high crime in general than with fears of anti-Semitic attacks.
“We know we are safe as Jews, but after the bombing, we don´t know how long,” Margulis says, whose synagogue is identified by only a small plaque.
“Jews are respected for being Jews in Brazil. There is no Jewish problem in Brazil,” Sobel says. But, “if, God forbid, the economy should get so bad in Brazil, I think there´s the possibility of Jews suffering the consequences.”
Anti-Israel sentiment can also lead to anti-Jewish feelings. “The common man doesn´t separate the Jews from Israel,” says Ruy Schneider, 59, a merchant banker and president of Rio´s Grande Templo Israelita. “Anti-Semitism is not a problem, but I wouldn´t say it doesn´t exist,” he notes, particularly in “some sectors of the intelligentsia and eventually throughout the lower classes.”
Brazil, however, maintains trade ties with the Jewish state.
“We view Brazil as an important trading partner,” says Eitam Surkis, 40, Israel´s consul general in Rio, who notes the two nations have “excellent bilateral relations.” But with trade at about $300 million, he adds, “commerce between Israel and Brazil could be much better.”
The first Jews came to Brazil to escape the Spanish Inquisition, arriving in 1500. The Inquisition soon followed them, and Jews were forced underground. With the Dutch conquest of Recife in 1630, a Jewish community began to thrive. Dutch Jews who had fled the Inquisition came to Brazil and established the first synagogue in the Americas, Sinagoga Kahal Zur Israel (Rock of Israel Community Synagogue), on what became known as Rua do Judeus (Street of the Jews), just a few blocks away from the port.
The street name later was changed to Rua do Bom Jesus (Street of Good Jesus).
From 1630 to 1654, Jews flourished in the community, mainly as merchants in a community known for its sugar production.
In 1654, Portugal regained control from the Dutch, driving the Jews out. Some setting sail back to Amsterdam ended up in New Amsterdam, eventually establishing New York City´s first congregation, Shearith Israel.
Zur Israel reopened to the public as a museum in early December. Earlier dedication ceremonies had been cancelled, reportedly due to fears of terror.
The yellow, two-story building stands between two restaurants on a cobblestone street that on Sundays becomes a crafts market.
Restoration began in the late 1990s, according to Tania Kaufman, an historian from Recife.
Only portions of two exterior walls remain from the original structure as well as the below-ground mikvah, according to Kaufman, who said the synagogue building had been given to a Portuguese general as part of the spoils of war.
It was later turned over to a Catholic religious organization, then became, in turn, a boutique, a bank and an electrical shop.
The discovery of the mikvah gave archeologists the certainty they had located the synagogue. Clear floor panels now allow visitors to see the ritual bath.
Jose Paulo Noslavsky of the Jewish Historical Archives in Recife calls Jews a “very important part of the history of the country. The very first settlers of Brazil were New Christians.”
Noting that Jews are not part of the official school history curriculum, Noslavsky says he hopes the new museum will provide the impetus to change that. He says educational seminars will be held at the museum and exhibitions will be brought to schools.
Although the majority of Jews left Brazil once the Portuguese regained control, some New Christians remained in the country, incorporating into their lives Jewish traditions that continue until today.
For example, Kaufman says, there are some Catholics who don´t eat pork and in certain small villages, Catholics put small stones, a Jewish tradition, on grave sites.
Most Brazilian Jews today, like Jews in the States, descend from families that arrived from Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century, between the two world wars or after World War II.
Many began as peddlers, like Halek´s husband, selling shmattes, and grew successful businesses, often in jewelry.
One of those is Hans Stern, founder and president of the international H. Stern Jewelers.
A Jewish immigrant from Germany, Stern came to Rio in 1939 and began the business in 1945. Today, H. Stern has more than 170 stores in a dozen nations.
Although Stern is an active philanthropist in Jewish causes (he was recently honored by the Bezelel Art Center in Jerusalem), he says it is just “coincidental” that H. Stern´s largest operation outside Brazil is in Israel, where there are 35 stores.
He also says it is accidental that three of his sons have married Jewish women (a fourth remains single). “This wasn´t really on purpose,” he says: “It just happened.”
Though eager to talk about his business, Stern seems reluctant to talk about his Judaism. He emphasizes that his philanthropy goes to non-Jewish causes as well, yet notes his wife is active in WIZO (the Women´s International Zionist Organization) and says all his sons spent time in Israel.
Stern may be reticent, but other Jews interviewed are eager to emphasize the importance of their Judaism: No matter how nonobservant they are, they must somehow keep the Jewish tradition of their grandparents.
That means that even Sobel´s liberal synagogue, affiliated with both the Conservative and Reform movements, is not egalitarian and maintains separate seating for men and women. And an egalitarian synagogue like Rio´s 800-family Temple ARI, also affiliated with both the Conservative and Reform movements, requires children of non-Jewish mothers to be converted.
“We have a wonderful mikvah: the ocean,” Margulis quips, adding there is a mikvah in Rio and the synagogue also plans to build its own.
In a country where public schools are considered poor, most middle- and upper middle class families send their children to private schools. Among Jews, that is just as likely to be a Jewish day school as not.
Even Recife, with its only 450 Jewish families, has a day school. Colegio Israelita Movses Chvartz is 83 years old with a student body of about 160, many of them not halachically Jewish. Some are not Jewish at all, including students whose parents work at the school.
A survey of 13 seventh-graders, for example, indicates that four students have two Jewish parents; six have one Jewish parent; and three are not Jewish.
With the community´s high intermarriage rate, most Jewish day schools accept students who have one Jewish parent, whether that parent be the mother or father.
Halek´s great-nephew, Allan Berger, 43, a D.C. resident who frequently takes extended trips to Recife where his bar mitzvah ceremony took place, says the non-Jewish spouse often becomes part of the community. “They get absorbed into the family. The family gets together every weekend. It´s a tight community.” Where Brazilian Jews may differ most from their U.S. counterparts is political activism. Although federations represent the Jewish community at the local and state level, there is no, for example, Brazil America Public Affairs Committee or Conference of Presidents of Major Brazilian Jewish Organizations. The lack of activism, says Sobel, is due in part to Brazil´s longtime military rule. Jews kept their distance from the political system, and for the most part have continued to do so. Though an activist himself, especially on human rights, and the most quoted rabbi in the Brazilian press, Sobel is not seeking a political voice so much as he is seeking, like many of his counterparts in the states, a way to keep Jews Jewish.
Wonders his Rio colleague Bonder, “How do I bring [to my congregants] a Judaism that is not just a matter of survival Judaism, but a Judaism that makes sense that has value in it.”
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