Research on Brazilian Jewry: An Overview

Abstract

Many scholars, and the public at large, stereotype Latin America as a Roman Catholic patriarchy, divided into a small Europeanized upper class of descendants from the Spanish landholding class and a large lower class comprised of mestizos, Indians and the descendants of African slaves. This stereotype has not been valid for at least a century. Recent scholarship on Jews in Latin America has widened our vision of society, culture and politics by emphasizing both the heterogeneity in religious observance and the region's increasing social diversity. Indeed many immigrant groups not only Jews but Arabs, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, people from the Caribbean, arrivals from eastern Europe and many others have for decades played major roles in this demographic diversification. Studies of these groups offer invaluable insight not only into the history of the newcomers but into the dynamics of the host society as well. One group that has seen a small but expanding stream of research in recent decades is Brazilian Jewry. Just as in other cases of minority groups and immigrants, early historical writing about Jews and Jewish lives was largely celebratory. Genealogical sleuthing predominated, searching for clues that individual historical personages were Jews or were descended from conversos or were secret Jews. One group claimed, for example, that the Portuguese national hero, sea captain and discoverer Vasco da Gama, had been born Gaspar da Gama, a converso. Professional historical studies addressing broader questions followed only gradually, and, during the 1950s, more serious work began