Sociedade Genealogica Judaica do Brasil
Dr. Guilherme Faiguenboim, Caixa Postal 1025
13001-970 Campinas SP, BRAZIL
Telephone: (5511) 881-9365 (Ms. Anna Rosa)
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

(CONIB) Confederacao Israelita do Brasil
Avenida Nilo Pecanha, 50-Gr. 1601
20020-100 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Tel. 55 21 240 0034, Fax 55 21 240 2717.
The synagogue president's name is Dr. Alberto Nasser. [October 2000]

Arquivo Historico Judaico Brasileiro
Rua Severino [Note: Address may be incorrect]
Sao Paulo

http://www.haruth.com/JewsBrazil.html [October 2000]
http://www.kosherdelight.com/Brazil.htm [August 2003]
also select Brazil at http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/comm_latin.html [October 2005]

"In the arid Northern region of Brazil, Rio Grande do Norte, Catholics in villages like Venhaver and Natal have long been recognized for their "unusual" religious practices. Settled in the early 1700s when Portuguese Inquisitional activity was at its strongest in the Brazilian northeast, Rio Grande do Norte is remote enough that Jews fleeing persecution were able to avoid much of it by hiding there. Even so, most of the Northern Brazilian Jews became Catholic, though they wove their Jewish practices into their Catholicism. Even today, members of the Venhaver community eat according to the Jewish dietary laws, hang small bags of dirt on their door post (traditional Jews hang a mezuzah on their door post, a small container with particular passage of the Torah enclosed), light candles on Friday nights, refuse to kneel in Church when they pray and hold alternative services at a secret place called the "snoga," which some suggest is derived from the Portuguese word "sinagoga," Dozens of Marrano-descended families in the larger city of Natal have undergone "purification" ceremonies to cleanse them of Catholic beliefs and allow them to resume their ancestors' Judaism."
Source: http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/dispersed.htm [January 2002]

BOOKS

Wolff, Frieda (Av. Osvaldo Cruz 95/1301, 22250 - 060 Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil): Sepultura de Israelitas , University Sao Paulo, Centro de Estudos Judaicos, Mo. 3, 1976 is at Leo Baeck Institute in NY (ID # GT 3233 R5 W6). Book contains inscriptions of Jewish tombstones in non-Jewish cemeteries (1976), one Jewish cemetery (1987), one cemetery in Belem do Para (1987) and inscriptions of tombstones of the Jewish sections in the cities of Natal and Campos where those sections are part of the municipal cemetery.

JEWISH COMMUNITY OF SÃO PAULO:

http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/sao-paulo.asp has Jewish community information. [October 2000]
Reference: Lipiner, E. and Serebronick, S. Breve historia dos Judeus no Brasil . 1962, pages 113-51.