A Demographic Profile of Brazilian Jewry

Abstract

Brazilian official censuses include a question about religion covering also data for a category labeled Jewish. This information, crossed with other variables, allows a description of the socio-economic and demographic profile of Brazil’s Jewish community from the first modern census carried on in 1940, to the most recent in 2000. The census data document the characteristics of Jewish migration and settlement in Brazil in terms of spatial distribution, growth, age structure, occupation, and other socio-economic indicators. Thus, Jews can be compared with the larger Brazilian population, showing specific patterns of uniqueness and integration. The dramatic transition in Brazil’s religious profile provides the general context within which the enlarged Jewish population of Jews and non-Jewish family members operates. Once almost universally Catholic, Brazil is becoming more diverse and pluralistic, with the emergence of many other denominations. The growth of numbers of people having no religion has not yet attracted much attention among researchers in the sociology of religion in developing countries. That characteristic is important for the demography of Jews in Brazil because most of those with a Jewish background that do not identify as such anymore, tend to be included under the group having no religion.