STOP! This page is under construction.

All Topics Here! This page is only here for references purposes.
I suggest that you go to the "All Topics" index page by clicking on the "Topics and Updates" icon on the left. Thanks!

xxxxxxxx end of page xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jews - The story of the Chosen People in Brazil

In the interest of time and space I'm going to skip the first 3,000 or so years of Jewish history. One cannot write about the Jews in Brazil without writing about Jews in Spain, Portugal and Holland -- and other places. Let us begin in Spain, in the early 1400s. As is so often the case of Jews, the numerous communities throughout Europe were struggling with the issues of faith, interpretation of the Torah, the hostility of the neighbors (Christian and Muslim) and the assimilation into the greater Christian community, either by intermarriage, voluntary adoption of the Christian faith or by forced conversion. For hundreds of years, Jews had suffered a series of restrictions of to where they could live, what they could own and what how they could earn their daily bread. Two of the most common activities available were tax collecting and money lending -- neither of which would contribute to the endearment among the general population. Added to this was the antagonistic attitude of the Catholic church, which traditionally viewed the Jewish people in a negative light due to a certain past event. The only thing the Jews had going for them was the friendship and support of the Royal family and nobles. This relationship would lead to disaster. Anyway, as the 1300s were ending, thousands of Jews throughout Spain, in the old cities of Cordoba, Seville, Toledo and even Barcelona were persecuted and murdered, with the bodies and men, women and children lying in the streets, their homes and even in piles in the synagogues. It was at this time that many Jews began converted to Christianity, to save their lives. Three terms came to describe the Jews that renounced their faith: the conversos, or converted ones, also called cristianos nuevos, who accepted Christianity and attempted a certain degree of integration into Spanish society, and the Crypto-Jews or marranos, that formally converted but continued to practice the old faith in private to a certain degree, burning Shabatt candles on Friday evenings and saying the Shema Yisrael in Hebrew, even if they no longer spoke that language. The word "marrano" usually is considered to refer to the Spanish word meaning pig, or filthy (maybe a bit of Castilian humor there...).

Most of those that did not convert fled the country; only a small portion of the approximately 200,000 Jews in Spain at that time remained as Jews, alive. The estimates of how many lived in Spain, how many died, or how many fled or converted are impossible to tally to any degree of acuracy. This was the Spain the Jews knew at the beginning of the golden age of discovery. Life was hard for the Jews, even the conversos who were often not trusted because it was thought that they they had adopted Christianity only to save their skins and fortunes -- which was true but only in some cases. In fact the great Maimonides had argued that Jews who convert to another religion under coercion (the anusim, plural!) such as the marranos did, continue to be Jews in good standing, in contrast to those who convert of their own free will (the meshumadim, or in modern terms, Jews for Jesus).

The story of the Spain in the XVth century is well known: the continuing Reconquista, Torquemada and the Inquisition, the auto-da-fe public burnings, the rise of Ferdinand and Isabela, the voyage of Columbus to the Indies and the final expulsion of all non-converso Jews from Spain in that same year (1492). No Jews were spared, even trusted royal advisers and personal advisors to the King and Queen, such as Isaac Abravanel (remember this name), were forced to seek refuge in distant lands. As many as 100,000 Jews choose to accept Christianity, joining the ranks of those who had converted over the preceding 100 years, and remained as loyal subjects to the Ferdinand and Isabela. There are no precise records as to how many Jews left Spain in 1492, but estimates range from 50 to 150 thousand, give or take a few.

Enter the Portuguese. In a new diaspora, Spanish Jews went to Northern Europe, Holland, Italy or accross the Mediterranean to Muslim lands, joining the Sephardi Jews and even taking their ladino language with them. Rabbinical scholars among the Jews, such as Issaac Abravanel, once again began searching for reason for this tragedy and for the 100th time, would conclude it was their fault and destiny to suffer until the Messiah came. Although free of Spain life continued to be hard and uneasy for the Jews. It was in the 1500s that the condotta laws, governing Jewish life and conduct, and the ghetto, were established in Europe. Many of the Jews found refuge in Constantinople (Istambul) where for centuries they would flourish under the Ottoman Emprie, protected by the Sultan himself. The only reason I mention this is that I have a soft spot for the Turks (the Armenian issue not withstanding) and my mother had a certain fascination with the janissaries, the Sultan's much feared shock-troops comprised of children abducted from Christian homes and raised as warriors. Anyway the Jews prospered under the Ottomans, becoming in science, trade and law the equivalent to what the janissary troops were in military terms. There was even a group of jews called donmeh that, somewhat like the marranos, converted to Islam either for personal gain or to follow a certain Sabbatai Zevi (a weird character is there ever was one!) but continued to practice Jewish rites. I want to introduce a specific editorial note here, that has nothing to do with Portuguese or Brazilian Jews, but is relevant to our times. Jews and even Christians did well under the Sultan, certainly much more than in other Muslim lands, and doubtless much, much better than in Christian Europe. Even so, however, they were still very much dhimmi, or non-believers to the Muslims. A bad joke: to islamists, dhimmis are the same as an infidel , except you tax one and kill the other. I only include this to lament the loss of the formerly somewhat tolerant attitude that Muslims had with Christians and Jews, particularly from the XIII to the XVIII century. Make no mistake, Jews and Christians, being people of the book, and enjoying certain priviledges as dhimmi (ie.. protected) were still nevertheless second and third class citizens, subject to restrictions and even penalties. Today we constantly hear from Muslims how "tolerant" Islam is. Well, yes and no. Remember tolerance is relative and doesn't mean equality. First of all, as stated in the Koran, this tolerance was never extended to the idolaters (that is people who were not "people of the book"), as were considered the Hindus or Buddists. Muslims to not like to talk about this, but I sure would like to hear a good, moral explanation why Christians should be treated better than Hindus -- not that either of them enjoy any "normal" priviledges anywhere today in Muslim countries. Also, what was true in 500 years ago is definitely not true today. Islam has become a mean, oppressive religion where ever Muslims dominate. Period. That is a fact -- just ask the Copts or the Christians in Pakistan. And that is only the Christian minorities, the Jews are now anathema (I love that word) treated as dogs (which also fare badly under Islam) in Muslim countries today (what few are left) with the possible exception of Turkey and Morrocos (a few bombings aside). Another thing: Jihad means "Holy War". The other definition, that of "internal personal struggle", is almost never used except when explaining this term to non-Muslims (for example: Islamic Jehad is definitely not a group of Muslims fighting high-fat diets or drinking problems). After a pause here I am beginning to think I am writing this only to use a lot of cool words I never get to use in normal conversation: crypto, converso, marrano, diaspora, auto-da-fe, anusim, Torah, rabbinical, janissary, dhimmi, anathema, Sephardi, jihad, etc. If I can only figure out how to include Ashkenazi here... Why is it when a person talks about Jews, one gets into very polemical issues? One thing is for sure, when writing about the Jewish people, there are no limits as to geography, history, science, social issues, philosophy, wars and rebellions -- they have it all. I still remember reading (as a young kid) the Josephus account of the seige of Jerusalem in AD 70, and wondering about a people that, while surrounded outside by four Roman legions, would divide into three groups and start fighting among themselves. Duhhhh. Forty thousand mad, mean, battle-hardened Roman soldiers ready to run them through with sworda would -- to normal folks -- usually be considered enough trouble for a lifetime. But no, the Jews have to start argueing about minor religious and political issues and even kill each other. Anyway, I digress (another great word).

Back to Portugal. As with Spain, Portugal had a long history of Jews, and the experiences of the Jews were in one were pretty much parallel to the happening in the other, with a little time warp. Many Spanish Jews fled to Portugal, and the King Joao II took them in -- for an entrance fee -- that allowed them to stay for a few months while seeking transit to another country. Only several hundred were allowed to stay. Soon things became as bad as they were in Spain, and pressure was put on the Jews to convert or leave. I have been told it was the Portuguese that came up with the idea of wearing the Star of David patch to identify Jews. A new Ruler had come to the throne in Lisbon and his Spanish royal bride had told him he wouldn't be getting any unless the expelled the Jews. So by 1497 the Jews were gone from Portugal, too. They went to Italy, North Africa, and to the Ottoman Empire. Many of the most influencial Jews went to Amsterdam, where the real story of Brazilian Jews begins. Although basically forgotten today, the story of the Portuguese Jews in Holland is remarkable. It is hard to imagine the impact of this community, yet a look at the paintings of Rambrandt and VanDyke, or a visit to the Great Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, or a careful reading of the great Dutch voyages and enterprises in the Age of Discovery all testify to the grand, historic role played by the Portuguese Jews.Of course, the Sephardi Portuguese Jews, being human, naturally looked down on the poorer, Yiddish speaking Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe that also settled in the city. It was from Holland, riding on Dutch boats, began arriving on the shores of the New World. Now a word about Jewsish names in Portuguese, particularly as they relate to marranos and conversos. It has been noted these Jews would typically chose "Christian" surnames derived from words relating to nature, particluarly trees, but also other plants and animals. Thus people named Oliveira (olive tree), Carvalho (oak tree), Pinheiro (Pine), Figueira (fig tree), Pereira (pear tree), Pimentel (pepper bush), Cordeiro (lamb), Pinto (chick), and Leão (lion) probably had Jewish had ancestors, even if all that remains is a quaint family tradition. I have heard this was the case of the Mesquita (mesquite tree) family in Sao Paulo, of Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper fame. I can still remember buying the 600 page Sunday edition and the blank spaces, or later recipes and Camoes poetry indicating deletions by the military regime censors (late 1960s). Some people claim that the Jewish influence is far greater, also adding names such as Rodrigues, Moreira, Medeiros, Nogueira, Cardoso, Lopes, Fonseca, Dias, Nunes, Silva, Souza, and Costa as being marrano in origin and pointing out that most early Portuguese explorers, including Cabral, often remarked in their journals about the great numbers of "new Christians" in their crews and among the colonists. If this is really the case, and if all the above names actually indicate this background to some degree, than about 85% of Brazilians have Jewish blood. I wonder. Once again, I digress.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Expulsos de Portugal, muitos judeus se instalaram no nordeste brasileiro no século XVII. Por volta de 1635 chegaram aos portos do nordeste judeus vindos da Holanda, mas originários da Península Ibérica (sefardins). Atraídos pela prosperidade, os navios fretados por judeus chegavam aos nossos portos quase que mensalmente. Uma vez aqui, muitos prosperaram sobretudo no comércio. Em 1910, uma nova leva, desta vez vindo da Rússia, chega a nossa região. Perseguidos pela Igreja Católica acusados de heresias em toda Europa, especialmente na Espanha e em Portugal, os judeus do nordeste brasileiro só tiveram liberdade religiosa durante o domínio holandês (1624 - 1654). Com a expulsão dos holandeses, a repressão voltou. Muitos foram obrigados a se cristianizar novamente ou rumar para, entre os índios janduís, viver no interior do Rio Grande do Norte. Em Recife (PE) foi erguida a primeira sinagoga das Américas no século XVII. . Por aqui ficaram conhecidos como "marranos" - por terem sido convertidos ao catolicismo "na marra". O anti-semitismo, isto é, ódio e repulsa a tudo o que é judeu, tem uma longa história na Europa e atingiu o seu ápice durante a Alemanha Nazista. Há alguns legados marranos presentes até hoje na cultura do nordeste brasileiro, como por exemplo a carne de sol do Rio Grande do Norte que é originária da carne kasher judaica, a tapioca típica foi desenvolvida da matzah judaica, o enterro de corpos em mortalhas, a retirada total do sangue dos animais abatidos; pintar as casas no final de ano, arrumá-las às sextas-feiras; comprar mercadorias à porta de casa e em prestações. Hoje, os judeus baseiam sua identidade muito mais em um sentido de história e tradições comuns do que em elementos étnicos ou lingüísticos. baptised/converted. xxxxxxxxxxx "Yes, I am a Jew," he explained not over-subtly to a politician who had attacked him on that account, "and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon." His over-the-top pride, set against widespread Jewish self-hatred of the sort embodied by (for example) Marx or (nowadays) Noam Chomsky, is intensely refreshing--a cool dip on a hot day. Too bad so many Jewish intellectuals are afraid of the water. Take Isaiah Berlin, who breaks out the sneer-quotes to mock Disraeli for conceiving himself "lifted above the teeming multitude by the genius of a 'great' race." No doubt Berlin would have rated America, too, not great but merely "great"--or was he afraid to exult in Jewish genius lest his gentile friends not like him any more? Berlin is long dead, but many thousands like him live on. Who needs anti-Semites when so many Jewish scholars attribute a robust interest in Jewish achievement not to pride but to "insecurity"--a disease with which they seem suspiciously familiar? Marx and Disraeli are perfect countertypes--partly the same, partly opposite (like particle and anti-particle in nuclear physics; when they meet, they destroy each other). Marx and Disraeli are the principal creators of the modern left and right respectively--two 19th-century Jews whose fathers had them baptized, who worked mainly in London, who counted on British power to protect the world from a dangerous Czarist Russia, who died within two years of each other, in 1881 (Disraeli) and '83 (Marx). They were both obsessed with Jews and Judaism, but Marx (the atheist left-winger) hated Jews, Judaism, and religion in general; Disraeli (the devout right-winger) felt differently. Benjamin Disraeli put it best: "There are three kinds of lies -- lies, damned lies, and statistics." The emancipation of the Jews had far-reaching religious, cultural, and political effects. Slowly, as Jews took their place in the modern world, the wall erected around the Jewish community by strict, traditional Judaism began to crumble. Moses Mendelssohn exerted one of the greatest influences in bringing about the adjustment of Judaism, both as a religion and as a way of life, to the outside world. By translating the Pentateuch into German and teaching the value of cultural affiliations between Jews and their non-Jewish environment, Mendelssohn opened the route for the cultural contributions made by later Jews, both to the Jewish community and to the world. One of the results of his work was the Reform Judaism initiated by German Jews. Many Jewish families discarded Judaism entirely, becoming Christian to increase their cultural and civic opportunities, and this action did not occasion the stern condemnation that it would have if taken only a century before. Among such families was that of Mendelssohn's own grandson, Felix Mendelssohn, the famous German composer. One of the greatest German poets, Heinrich Heine, was born Jewish and, although he was converted to Christianity, retained his love for Judaism. Benjamin Disraeli, one of the most notable British statesmen, was the son of a converted Jew. In every country of western Europe, as well as in the United States, Jews made monumental contributions, not as members of a Jewish community but as citizens and members of national cultures. Karl Marx originated the modern socialist and Communist movements. In France, Henri Bergson and in Germany Hermann Cohen and Martin Buber profoundly influenced modern philosophy. Sigmund Freud originated psychoanalysis. In the graphic arts, such Jews as the painters Amedeo Modigliani (born in Italy), Camille Pissarro (of Portuguese and French parentage), and Marc Chagall (born in Russia), and the sculptors Jacob Epstein (born in the United States) and Jacques Lipchitz (born in Lithuania), became famous in international art circles. Albert Einstein (born in Germany) revolutionized theories of physics and mathematics with his concept of relativity. In many fields of human knowledge and endeavour, Jews distinguished themselves as separate and equal members of all societies. Relationship to other Jews Although the Sephardim lived on peaceful terms with other Jews, they rarely intermarried with them; neither did they unite with them in forming congregations, but adhered to their own ritual, which differed widely from the Ashkenazic. Wherever the Sephardic Jews settled they grouped themselves according to the country or district from which they had come, and organized separate communities with legally enacted statutes. In Constantinople and Thessaloniki, for example, there were not only Castilian, Aragonian, Catalonian, and Portuguese congregations, but also Toledo, Cordova, Evora, and Lisbon congregations. One interesting example is the "Belmonte Jews" in Portugal. A whole comunity survived in secrecy for hundreds of years by maintaining a tradition of intermarriage and by hiding all the external signs of their faith. The Jewish comunity in Belmonte goes back to the XII century and they were only discovered in the XX century. Their rich Sephardic tradition of Cryptowere-Judaism is unique. Only recently did they contact other Jews and they now profess Orthodox and such Spanish or Portuguese surnames as Belmonte, Benveniste, Bueno, Calderon, Campos, Cardoso, Castro, Curiel, Delgado, Fonseca, Cordova, Leon, Lima, Mercado, Monzon, Rocamora, Pacheco, Pardo, Pereira, Pinto, Prado, Sousa, Suasso, Toledano, Tarragona, Valencia, and Zaporta. Congregations xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Ginsburg, Solomon L. (Orthodox Polish Jew), became a missionary and left an indelible mark worthy of the book of Acts as he faced murderous mobs in Brazil with the Gospel of Messiah… until he died in 1927. One day, Solomon began reading chapter 53 of Isaiah. "Who is this talking about?" he asked his rabbi father. To his surprise, his father snatched the scroll from his hand and slapped his face. Later, without consulting him, Solomon's father arranged his son's marriage with a twelve-year-old girl. Her wealthy parents would support Solomon for seven years while he, too, studied to become a rabbi. Fifteen-year-old Solomon rebelled at this commercial arrangement. Fleeing home, he made his way to London, where he worked for an uncle. There a Christian Jew invited him to a gospel meeting, promising to explain Isaiah 53. Intrigued, Solomon went and heard the prophecy of Christ's crucifixion explained. Thrown out of his home, he resisted family enticements and promises of money, becoming a notable evangelist to Brazil instead. He was beaten many times, but always rejoiced that he could suffer for Jesus. The converted Jew also escaped several assassination attempts, winning his would-be killers to Christ by kindness and godly speech. Thousands were converted under his faithful ministry. xxxxxxxxxxxx In Portugal, the Marquis de Pombal officially abolished all legal distinctions between Old and New Christians in May 1773. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Page updated: June 2004