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5 Inscribing Jews into the Nation Indicators of Jewish integration into Brazilian society sometimes take surprising forms. For example, a century ago, when most Jews in Brazil were Sephardim and lived in the north of the country along the Amazon, they struggled to establish Jewish institutions. In 1908, Rabbi Shalom Emanuel Muyal immigrated and joined other Moroccans in the region, but he died two years later during an epidemic. Manaus did not have a Jewish cemetery yet, so the rabbi was buried in the municipal cemetery. In what must surely fall under the category of “only in Brazil,” Rabbi Muyal has been credited with posthumous “miracles” by local Catholics, and his tomb has become a Christian pilgrimage site (Hinchberger 1999). Curiously, not only do visitors light candles, but some leave stones on his grave in accordance with Jewish tradition. Now that he is a popular saint known as the Santo Judeu Milagreiro de Manaus (Holy Jewish Miracle Worker of Manaus), the local Jewish community cannot relocate his grave to the Jewish cemetery, let alone to Israel, as requested by his nephew, a member of Israel’s Knesset (Hinchberger 1999). Though especially colorful because of the way it intertwines traces of Brazilian history, syncretic elements Inscribing Jews into the Nation ◆ 133 of folk Catholicism, and interfaith tolerance, the incorporation of Rabbi Muyal into local culture is one of many examples of the broad acceptance that has allowed Jews to establish a home in Brazil. Jewish Brazilians have become thoroughly enmeshed in national culture and society. They have attained a symbolic value that far exceeds their numerical significance, especially in light of recent anniversaries that have stimulated examinations of national history and identity. At the federal and municipal levels, agencies of the state have made deliberate, public gestures signaling the importance of Jews within the Brazilian nation . Institutions of popular culture have also joined in this celebration of Jews as part of this multicultural nation by incorporating Jewish themes and working with the Jewish community to promote a vision of a shared Jewish-Brazilian trajectory and set of values. The Jewish community has embraced these moments as opportunities to consolidate its place within the nation. Rediscovering Jews At the dawn of the twenty-first century, 500 years after Europeans “discovered ” Brazil, Brazil discovered Jews. This discovery entailed a rewriting of the past and a new reading of the present, both in the service of reconfiguring the nation as more than a former colonial dependency, more than a Catholic country, and more than the product of the idea of the “three races” that has dominated national mythology. As the evidence mounts of Jewish contributions to Brazil throughout its 500-year history, Jews have come to be seen as collaborators in the national project rather than as recent arrivals. It is as if Brazilians’ discovery of Jews in their midst sheds a new and positive light on the whole of Brazil. In April 2000, Brazil marked the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Portuguese explorers at the protrusion of the coast now occupied by the northeastern city of Olinda, the formative moment in the creation of the new nation. To remind the citizenry of the approaching quincentenary, the Globo television network sponsored an oversized countdown clock on the Avenida Faria Lima in São Paulo. The preparations for the anniversary celebration were extensive and involved all levels of government, education, and news and entertainment media in the production of representations of Brazil for both internal consumption and export. Most endeavors reinterpreted the past, while a few took a look at the future. 134 ◆ Kosher Feijoada Flavio Pinheiro begins his introduction to the edited volume on the “next 500 years” of Brazil, stating: “In the year 2000, emblem of the future, Brazil returned to the past. Five hundred years to try to explain the country spit out by the metabolism of colonization, by the cauldron of races, by the original sin of exclusion” (Pinheiro 2000:5). As is typical of major anniversaries, this one presented an opportunity for revisiting Brazilian history. It also afforded an opportunity to revise that history, to reinterpret and salvage (resgatar) moments from the past in such a way as to redefine Brazilianness. In a country which seems to be continually examining what it means to be Brazilian, a major mark like the quincentenary was a rare opportunity to rewrite history in support of a new image of the nation.1 Set in motion in anticipation of this anniversary, there appears...

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