Brazil, the promised land: The most fantastic Jewish migration story

Copyright © 2016 by Bruno Feigelson

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Design by Leonardo Miranda and Verônica Paranhos

Translation by Wide Traduções Técnicas

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

INTRODUCTION

WHERE WE COME FROM

WHERE WE ARE GOING: POSSIBLE PATHS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To God, in the broader sense; the One that regular human instruments – despite man’s arrogance for believing that we’re the great masters of this world – are not capable of understanding, but that the most innocent and ignorant of souls can naturally learn to love.

To my ancestors, whose identities were mostly lost over the course of history, but who somehow manifested, even if subconsciously, their inner Me. I thank you for having lived the way you lived, for having been who you were, for having chosen what you chose and, in doing so, making it possible to get to this point where I fortunately have the opportunity to live in a place like Brazil, which is certainly the closest we’ll ever be to the biblical prophecies on paradise, and where I can practice Judaism after centuries of persecution in a free and integrated fashion within a society that has much  to improve, but also so much to teach the world.

I would like to extend a special thank you to my father, who always candidly and affectionately shared his perception on the past and tried, in a visionary fashion, to show us the challenges and beauties that are yet to come into fruition in this world. To my mother and to my brother, with whom I share an indescribable bond and without whom life would be meaningless. And to Nice, who has tagged along with me over the past decade embarking on journeys of knowledge and discovery of Brazil, Israel, the world and the day-to-day, making me company in this beautiful adventure we call life.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank my editor, Guilherme Tolomei, my long-time friend, adventure and project companion, whose participation and comments were imperative to get this work in the hands of readers.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This work has been created aiming to provide a great and effortless reading. In this regard, we chose not to present footnotes. When necessary, there are references about the works and authors that evoked particular excerpts in the text body. In addition, it should be highlighted that the material used as basis to many topics in this project was widely researched.

Thus, the following book does not present academic features, but empirical analysis, that in many moments is based in data and renowned authors. Therefore, it is about a reflection chain, aiming to contribute somehow to this country. It is a book elaborated by someone who really believes in Brazil, and has the understanding that it is possible to help with a different perspective from the ones that already exist.

Some questions still remain in relation to the origin of the term that names our nation. Some studies mention that Brazil is related to a Celtic legend, in which the word designated a blessed land, full of delights, that was in a certain way hidden by dense clouds. Therefore, we face an area that reckoned on a large range of mysticism and expectations even before its formal discovery by Portuguese people. A promised land in European imagination, which will need lots of investments from Brazilians to became the paradise they aim at.

In the prologue to the Hebrew translation of Totem and Taboo, written by Sigmund Freud, there is a reflection expressed about his Jewish condition. The author ask about what is left of Jewish in him, as he had abandoned all the common signs to his fellow countrymen. The founder of psychoanalysis answers this question exposing that what is left is a huge part of it, probably its own essence. However, Freud mentions that in that moment he could not express this essence clearly in words, but that someday, with no doubt, it would be accessible to the scientific spirit.

In despite of a mystical perception of what can be considered of this Jewish essence, it seems necessary try to understand it by the light of reason. Jewish people, throughout history, even though in a small number – in different historical moments, the percentage regarding humankind as a whole varied, but an average that does not exceed 0,2% can be worked with –, always contributed to society’s evolution in a substantial way, in different areas of human knowledge. This fact cannot be denied not even by the most extreme Anti-Semites.

It is understood that such incidence did not happen due to genetics, or even religious issues, considering that even Jews that are, or will be, in the greatest list of personalities in human history, overwhelmingly, were or are in the secular group. If mysticism was the predominant element of great Jewish deeds in history, its main characters would certainly be orthodox.

Consequently, what is determined, in accordance with a more progressive vision of Judaism, is that this people’s role is to contribute with the improvement of the world. It is about an eminent tradition related to acting, to doing, to building, and also ruled by breaking the status quo.

Abraham, the first Jew, abandoned his idolatry-based country, and presented a new way to understand the existence, based in an almighty and omnipresent creator.  An extremely avant-garde and rebel perspective for  the age. Moses, in turn, established moral concepts that would rule life in the Western millennia later. Besides that, he led a slave group, facing one of the most powerful empires in ancient times. The confrontation of the established situation is in the people’s DNA, as Rabbi Nilton Bonder observes, in a work that has the same name of the term that he develops throughout the book; this will for innovation, for breaking paradigms is a manifest of immoral soul. The apparent paradox that is determined in a traditional group, that in an unique way crossed different eras of humankind, being present in three quarters of civilization’s history – even without a national home and a main place great part of the time–, and the people that innovate in different human knowledge areas may be a side to the Jewish essence exposed by Freud.

Therefore, it may be possible to search in the essence of what Judaism would be, the answers to some of the dilemmas in Brazilian life. Judaism, as all the other elements that are part of the Brazilian society, should work hard to contribute with a country that will have a leading part in the world. In a highly troubled period of human’s history, in which economical, religious, provisioning and environmental issues which challenges human race’s future, a stronger country that really knows itself will be essential to contribute to the conflict’s resolution process.

Brazil’s success is relevant not only for Brazilians, but for the whole planet. Just by understanding such premises is that the country will move forward. It is possible that the ticunolam principle, that is, perfecting the world, something that all Jews should follow, has to be taken over by the Brazilian nation, notably facing its marrano origin.

As there will be, shortly, the opportunity of a more detailed exposure, Jews, besides being one of the religious groups currently located in Brazil – individuals that have good social exposure, due to their contributions in different areas, in spite of a low proportion of such group facing the largest population in the country –, are also one of the ethnicities that compose the Brazilian population.

From the ethnic point of view, Jewish percentage is high. The number of marranos – the term, that can also be replaced by New Christians, mainly designates Jewish individuals, especially from the Iberian Peninsula; who while facing Inquisition were forced to convert themselves, keeping Judaism, in many cases, as secret, sometimes for several generations – that colonized the country in the first few centuries is huge, which could suggest that, as we discuss the composition of Brazilian’s population, we then define that we consist of Natives, Africans and Portuguese people, largely Jews forcedly converted.

And as important as it is that Brazilians deeply know the Native, African and Portuguese culture influences, as they are the national identity roots, it is also essential to understand what is Jewish, even though it is unconscious, in the Brazilian soul, considering that Jewish blood runs through Brazilian veins – even if such ancestry is unknown by most of the population.

The Greek aphorism Know thyself is applicable to Brazil. It is necessary to know your origins, your roots, to effectively understand who you are and your role in the world. In an interesting study called Out of Focus: diversity and ethnic identities in Brazil, Simon Schwartzman, former IBGE president, demonstrates the existing relationship between family origins’ knowledge and people’s income in the country. A summarized conclusion is that individuals who identify their origins tend to have a higher income than the ones who cannot specify their family ancestry. What is noticeable is that the Brazilian population in general does not know much about Judaism, which means that they know little about one of the elements that compose their existence.

Explaining the history of a nation that has been present in over three quarters of humankind history is obviously a hard task, and it is practically impossible to be exposed in a single work. Also, because of the fact that there are lots of controversies involved in understanding this history. Works such as Simon Schama’s, which is based on archeological findings, are opposed in many ways to biblical evidences, just to mention a single example of what can be found in a minimal research about Jewish history.  Even the book   The invention of the Jewish people, by Shlomo Sand, that deeply questions certain classical Jewish perceptions, could give a whole different perception concerning who Jewish people are to a reader with little background about the theme.

Freud himself, in his classical work Moses and monotheism, raises the hypothesis that Moses, one of the greatest figures in Judaism, would be Egyptian, and, more than that, the people he led would have killed their savior in an uprising moment. Independently from controversies, it is clear that the author’s ideologies always influence the way of narrating the same episode, or searching an explanation for this fact.

This is not a book to analyze revisionist theories about Jewish people,  nor does it intend to trace an eminently religious analysis. We will  try,  in the best possible way, to pick out certain aspects from the huge concept that composes the term Judaism.

Jewish identity is one of the greatest challenges in the modern world, which in a certain way draws and intensifies deep discussions that were already called upon in the last centuries. Understanding what it means to be Jewish is not a simple task. So, I am not proposing to offer the reader a simplistic conception. Saying if Judaism is a religion, a national group, a philosophical perception, and seeking for its origins through a non-linear history, are not the main objectives of this work.

The aim is, throughout both parts that compose this work, to analyze Judaism’s strong elements, related to religious, national, people’s and even in certain moments mystical perceptions, to contextualize them with the Brazilian reality. Certainly, it is a subjective task. That is, if the current work was written by another author, the highlighted elements would be different.

There is a saying that expresses: Ask two Jews and get three opinions. As it is