BRAZIL

 

The Internet remains the most popular means of disseminating defamation against Israel and the Jewish people in Brazil. Occasionally, left wing intellectuals and public figures who embrace radical anti-Zionist views resort to antisemitic allegations.

Antisemitic manifestations increased significantly during Israel’s war in Gaza, due in part to intensive TV screening of scenes showing dead children.

 

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, has a Jewish population of about 100,000, out of a total population of over 185 million. Most Jews live in Brazil’s major cities – São Paulo (São Paulo), Río de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro), and Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul); the remainder are scattered among the cities of Salvador (Bahia), Fortaleza (Ceará), Belém (Pará) and Manaus (Amazonas).

The Jewish community of São Paulo is represented by the Federação Israelita do Estado de São Paulo (FISESP, http://www.fisesp.org.br) and the Jewish community of Rio de Janeiro by the Federação Israelita do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FIERJ, http://www.fierj.org.br). The umbrella institution embracing the Jewish communities of Brazil is the Confederação Israelita do Brasil (CONIB, http://www.conib.org.br), which coordinates 13 Jewish organizations from the states of Amazonas, Bahia, Goiás, Ceará, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo.

There are many Jewish schools in Brazil and two academic centers of Jewish studies: the Centro de Estudos Judaicos, at the University of São Paulo (CEJ-USP) and the Núcleo de Estudos Judaicos, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais – NEJ-UFMG (http://www.ufmg.br/nej), in Minas Gerais.

The São Paulo community publishes the journals Revista 18 (Centro da Cultura Judaica) and Revista Shalom, as well as the traditional newspaper Jornal Tribuna Judaica and the magazine Revista Morsahá. Another important publication is the community of Paraná’s newspaper Visão Judaica. Online Jewish sources include Jornal Alef (http://www.jornalalef.com.br/); BBPress (http://www.bnai-brith.com.br); and Notacias da Rua Judaica (http://www.owurman.com/blog/).

 

antisemitic activity and extremist groups

While the number of neo-Nazis groups operating in Brazil is unknown (about 150, according to some journalists), there are some 20 groups in Sao Paulo (according to the Institution of Racial Crimes and Intolerance Offenses − Delegacia de crimes raciais e delitos de intolerancia, DECRADI). All of them express intolerance toward homosexuals, poor migrants from the north of the country (Nordestinos), foreigners, blacks and Jews. Several homosexuals and transvestites were attacked in recent years in the streets of the big cities.

 

Defamation, Insults and Threats

In Brazil antisemitic expressions emanate from both the extreme right and the extreme left. Occasionally, left-wing intellectuals and public figures who embrace radical anti-Zionism also resort to antisemitic allegations or insinuations. For example, sociologist Gilson Marques Gondim, a consultant of the Legislative Assembly of Paraiba who holds several state jobs and teaches in the Master's program in the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB), was suspected in March of using the university provider to send messages discussing the Nazi-fascist character of the State of Israel and the ideology of those who support it in his blog “Multiplos Universos.” He also quoted the Holocaust denial writer Siegfried Elwanger, known as S.E. Castan (see, for example, ASW 2004).

            The columnist Gabriel Bolaffi aroused controversy and numerous responses following an article entitled “Zionism − a Sad Irony of History” (Sionismo – Triste ironia da Historia) he published in the liberal newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo (January 2008). Bolaffi stated, inter alia, that the Iranian president was “right about several things he said [about Israel].” Several leading Jewish community members were very critical of the newspaper for publishing the article.

            Law professor Antonio Sabastiao de Lima wrote a virulently antisemitic article entitled “Einstein and Religion” (May 22) in the opinion page of the leftist paper Tribuna de Imprensa (Rio de Janeiro). He referred to the “perverse character of the Jewish people,” and to the Jews’ god as, “genocidal, cruel, exclusivist.”

            The Internet remains the most popular means of disseminating defamation against Israel and the Jewish people. There is no specific punitive law against defamation on the Internet. Anthropologist Adriana Dias from UNICAMP (Campinas University) in Campinas, São Paulo, estimated that 20,000 neo-Nazis sites were active on the Worldwide Web in 2008, at least four of which he identified as being of Brazilian origin. There were some 150,000 entries to these sites by Brazilian users, 35-55 years of age who had a high school or college education.

            According to Thiago Tavares, president of SAFERNET, a NGO of scientists and other academics involved in human rights advancement in Brazilian society, the number of complaints of hate on the web was growing rapidly. Most concerned the Google-operated social networking site Orkut, which hosts more that 200 Brazilian neo-Nazi communities. Some of the complaints mentioned two well known Brazilian neo-Nazi groups, Front88 and Vahalla88. According to historian Alexandre de Almeida, author of the book Skinheads: The Myth of White Power in Sao Paulo, most groups arise and disappear very fast. Since the government regards their activities as a threat to the state, it employs police agents that specialize in cybernetic crime to track them down and disband them.

            The National Central for Cybernetic Crime Complaints received 91,038 reports in 2008. Of these, over half concerned child pornography; the others related to discrimination, racism and the like. SAFERNET received 20,000 complaints in the categories of religious intolerance, homophobia, neo-Nazism, racism and xenophobia, some of them from Jewish victims or complainants. For example, the journalist Caio Blinder, who is of Jewish descent, complained he was attacked daily in his blog with remarks such as, “You’re a dirty Jew who’s lucky to have been born after the Holocaust.”

            Some 150,000 Brazilians visit local neo-Nazi sites (one-third in the state of Santa Catarina, and the others in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, São Paulo, Paraná, Distrito Federal, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais). They “learn” there how the Jews are “responsible” for all the maladies of the world − pedophilia, homosexuality, prostitution, Masonry, capitalism and communism, and believe their mission is to defend the white race which is under threat from other inferior races. “Ziopedia” a virtual encyclopedia of hate against Jews and Israel produced in Australia is very popular in Brazil.

            Several new Holocaust denial blogs and racist sites appeared in Brazil in 2008. Diego Silvio Santos created a page in Orkut, “This Is Hitler’s Way” (Sou Fa do Hitler). Holocaust denial author Norberto Toedter, who wrote the pro-German Continuing War (E a Guerra continua, 2001), launched the “Blog do Toedte” (http://2a.guerra.zip.net/), which discusses World War II from a revisionist point of view.

            A number of Brazilian academics were involved in antisemitic activity. Holocaust denier Alfredo Braga created the cultural “Blog Alfredo Braga.” During Israel’s war in Gaza he wrote of the “Jewish-Israeli beast” that had corrupted the world and the “lies about the Holocaust” (see http://www.alfredo-braga.pro.br/discussoes/); he is also a propagandist of “classic” antisemitic literature.

            Many Jewish members of Orkut complained to FIERJ about receiving antisemitic messages, such as " The Messiah came to my room tonight… Death to all Jews! The Jews are the dirtiest thing in the world” (www.israelixo.jeeran.com/israelixo.htm; see also http://www.pletz.com/novo_noticias/291010.html). The message was sent by someone named “Anuar Baja,” who runs Israelixo, perhaps the most virulently antisemitic site operated from Brazil.

 

Responses to Operation Cast Lead

In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, antisemitic manifestations increased significantly during the war, due in part to intensive TV screening of scenes showing dead children and other civilians. Criticism of Israel, which in the past appeared mostly in left-wing newspapers and journals with limited circulation, became much more common in the liberal press after the war. In major journals such as Isto E and Veja, for example, the operation was depicted as “a total war” of destruction.

            In January, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian rallies took place in the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Brasilia, Curitiva, Porto Alegre and Foz do Iguacu (on the Triple Frontier between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina). Members of the Arab-Palestinian community together with left-wing militants carrying Palestinian flags were the principal demonstrators. In Sao Paulo, for example, 3,000 people bore placards showing the Star of David equated with the swastika and referring to Israelis as “terrorists” and “assassins.” According to a member of the Muslim community in Sao Paulo, Nadia Salem Jabbar, the aim of the rally was to raise Brazilian awareness and mobilize people to support the Palestinian cause. Antisemitic banners were reported at five rallies in Sao Paulo. Participants burned flags with the Star of David equated with the swastika. Graffiti branding Israel “a terrorist state,” among other slogans, was daubed on the walls of the Consolation cemetery in the center of Sao Paulo.

Three hundred participants took part in an anti-Israel rally in Rio de Janeiro; most were from left-wing parties and radical left-wing workers organizations. Speakers contended that Israel had been created by the US as a tool of imperialism to help control Middle East oil. Dismissing any religious aspect to the conflict, they considered the Palestinian struggle a progressive battle against imperialism and capitalism. They also labeled the Israeli ambassador an imperialist spy and, as in Venezuela, called for his expulsion from the country. One of the banners proclaimed that Israel had turned Gaza into a Nazi concentration camp. Supporters of the Arab Palestinian Federation of Brazil, the Muslim Society of Paraná and unions and student groups also demanded the expulsion of Israel’s diplomatic delegation in Brazil and burnt the Israeli flag at a rally held in the city of Curitiba. In addition, the organizers held a symbolic campaign of blood donations for Palestinians allegedly massacred by Israel. An exhibition in the center of Curitiba highlighted the “Palestinian holocaust.”

At the end of a rally held in January in the city of Belo Horizonte, participants threw objects and red paint at the building of the Jewish Federation of the State of Minas Gerais. On the walls of the city of Recife, northern Brazil, graffiti signed by the Communist Party of Recife said, “Israel leave” and “Long live the Palestinian Resistance.” The differences between Hamas and Fatah flared up on December 31 at a rally in front of the Israeli embassy in the capital Brasilia, with sympathizers of both camps fighting each other.

Emphasizing the link between the State of Israel and the Jews of Brazil, the president of the Arab Palestinian Federation of Brazil, Ualid Rabah, speaking in the southern city of Porto Alegre, called on the Jewish community to denounce Israel. Claiming that the silence of the Jews was incomprehensible, he said it was important to ask every Jewish man and woman whether Israel spoke on their behalf when it carried out its crimes.

Also in Porto Alegre, the slogan “Death to the Jewish pigs” and a swastika with the sign of the neo-Nazi Walhalla 99, appeared on the walls of the Jewish Association. The leaders of the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT), a moderate pro-Palestinian organization, which supports Israel’s right to exist, published on January 4, an aggressive statement signed by its national president, Ricardo Berzoini, and its secretary of international relations, Valter Pomar, claiming that Israel was a terrorist, Nazi state. Several PT members criticized the declaration, saying that it contradicted the traditional party position and that it had distorted Nazism as a unique, historical phenomenon. It also censured the organization for not condemning Hamas terrorism and denying Israel’s right to exist.

In response to the anti-Israel rallies, the Jewish community of Sao Paulo organized a demonstration in support of Israel under the banner “Demonstrating on behalf of peace,” attended by some 3000 people − Jews, Evangelists, Catholics, Buddhists and others.

 

responses to racism and antisemitism

There were several trials dealing with the dissemination of neo-Nazi material in 2008. The owners of the publishing house Centauro Editorial, for example were tried for selling Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (FIERJ Bulletin, February 29). The Centauro were ordered to desist selling those books.

            Following the intervention of B’nai B’rith and DECRADI, an electronic journal that compared Moses to Hitler and Judaism to Nazism, created by the Sao Paulo lawyer Fabio de Oliveira Ribeiro, was ordered removed by Judge Wilson Lima da Silva in September 2008.