Brazil was made
by the Jews
And the Jews first came to the Americas through Brazil.
When in 1497 the Inquisition in Portugal took hold, Jews fled to places throughout the world. The very first Jewish settlement in all of the Americas was in the Dutch capital of Recife, northeast Brazil.
• In 2001, the first ever built synagogue of the Americas, Kahal Zur, in Recife, built in 1636, representing the pride and hope of the jews in the new world, was reopened, 347 years after it was closed by Portuguese colonial rule.
After two years of excavation and restoration, the synagogue will house a Jewish cultural center and host a few religious ceremonies. The synagogue had not been used since the mid-17th century when the Portuguese defeated the Dutch at Recife and expelled the estimated 1,200 Jews and banned Judaism.
• Today, Brazil's rich cultural life includes several Jewish customs, an array of Jewish publications, many schools, more than 40 active synagogues, several kosher supermarkets and a number of kosher restaurants, in several major cities.
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