Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Brazil

Brazil, with Latin America's second-largest Jewish community: its Zionist institutions, Christian Zionism on the right, Israeli arms and surveillance technology, and the diplomatic rupture under President Lula

Brazil has the second-largest Jewish community in Latin America, which its representative body puts at 120,000 people. Relations with "Israel" date from 1949–50. They broke down after February 2024, when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust and "Israel" declared him persona non grata. In 2025 Brazil joined South Africa's genocide case against "Israel" at the International Court of Justice. Israeli arms and surveillance companies, including Elbit Systems and Cognyte, have long supplied the Brazilian state.

Jewish community and religious life

History

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) says Jews and conversos were in Brazil from the colonial period, that by 1645 there were about 1,500 Jews in the north-east, and that Dutch rule there brought tolerance under which Jews prospered in commerce. The Kahal Zur Israel synagogue in Recife was the first synagogue in the Americas. Renewed Portuguese persecution drove many Jews to Dutch territories such as Curaçao and New York. More than 50,000 Jews entered Brazil between 1926 and 1942, and about 17,500 between 1933 and 1939, before Brazil banned further Jewish refugees. The Brazilian ambassador to France, Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, nevertheless issued visas to hundreds of French Jews.

The community today

The WJC cites CONIB's figure of more than 120,000 Jews and Sergio DellaPergola's estimate of between 93,200 and 150,000 in 2010. Most live in the state of São Paulo, with other communities in Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and Paraná. The WJC says there are about 200 associations "aimed at promoting Zionist activity and Jewish-oriented education, culture, and charity", that "all major international Zionist organizations are represented in Brazil", and that "most of the Jewish community in Brazil identifies itself as a Zionist". The main organisations are listed below.

• Confederação Israelita do Brasil (CONIB): the community's representative and co-ordinating body, with 14 state federations under its umbrella. It gives its founding date as 30 May 1948; the WJC says 1951. Among its pillars it lists "garantir a soberania e legitimar a existência do Estado de Israel" ("guaranteeing the sovereignty and legitimising the existence of the State of Israel"). In February 2024 it called Lula's comparison of the Gaza war with the Holocaust a "distorção perversa da realidade" ("perverse distortion of reality"), and said the government had adopted "uma postura extrema e desequilibrada" ("an extreme and unbalanced stance") on the conflict.
  • How far is it Zionist? Strongly. Defending the legitimacy of the Zionist state is one of its stated pillars, and it publicly defends Israeli military action.
• Hebraica São Paulo: the WJC calls it the largest Jewish organisation in Brazil, with 18,000 members and activities including sports, theatre and youth movements. Hebraica in Rio de Janeiro runs a day school.
• Congregação Israelita Paulista: founded in 1936 by refugees from Nazi Germany as a Reform synagogue, with links to the Conservative movement. The WJC calls it the largest synagogue in Latin America.
• Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein: built in São Paulo in 1955 with donations from Jewish families, and described by the WJC as "one of the strongest Jewish institutions in Brazil".
• Youth movements: the WJC lists Hashomer Hatzair, Bnei Akiva, Chazit Hanoar, Netzach and Habonim Dror, and says B'nai B'rith also operates in Brazil.
  • How far is it Zionist? These are Zionist youth movements, spanning socialist, religious and liberal Zionism.
• Education: Jewish education is organised by the National Institute of Education and Culture, with a committee in each state.

How far is it Zionist? On the WJC's own account, most Brazilian Jews identify as Zionists, and the central body, CONIB, counts defending "Israel" among its pillars. No significant organised Jewish anti-Zionist body was found in the sources consulted.

Chabad

Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement

Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Brazil. The WJC says that in recent years the Chabad movement "has made inroads in São Paulo, establishing several synagogues and Mikvaot (ritual baths), as well as a kindergarten".

Zionist movement and advocacy

• Christian Zionism: Israeli flags have been carried at rallies called by allies of Jair Bolsonaro, such as one on São Paulo's Avenida Paulista in August 2025. BBC News Brasil quotes the sociologist Brenda Carranza of Unicamp, who researches Christian Zionism in the global South, as saying that pro-Israel evangelical activism is interdenominational. The sociologist Maria das Dores Campos Machado calls Christian Zionism "um movimento ideológico transnacional que tem uma dimensão religiosa e outra dimensão política" ("a transnational ideological movement with a religious dimension and a political one").
• In June 2026 Flávio Bolsonaro, then a presidential candidate, spoke at the Israel Allies Foundation's Latin American conference in Buenos Aires, praising its president, Josh Reinstein, for "faith-based diplomacy", which he said "is what has helped nations move their embassies to Jerusalem".

Israeli state and commercial ties

Diplomacy

• The Israeli foreign ministry dates recognition to January 1950. The WJC says the two countries have had full relations since 1949, and that Brazil's UN delegation head, Oswaldo Aranha, played a "decisive role" in the 1947 vote on the partition plan, which is still remembered in "Israel".
• In 2010 Lula made the first official visit to "Israel" by a Brazilian head of state. In April 2019 Bolsonaro visited, and in December 2019 his son opened an office of the Brazilian export promotion agency in Jerusalem, which Bolsonaro called a first step towards moving the embassy.
• In February 2024 Lula said that what was happening to the Palestinians in Gaza had happened before only when Hitler decided to kill the Jews. The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, declared him persona non grata, saying "no perdonaremos ni olvidaremos" ("we will not forgive or forget"), and Brazil recalled its ambassador.
• In August 2025 "Israel" withdrew its nominee for ambassador, Gali Dagan, after Brazil left his agrément unanswered, and said relations would be conducted at "um patamar inferior" ("a lower level"). Lula's foreign-policy adviser, Celso Amorim, said Brazil was responding to the "public humiliation" of its ambassador in 2024, and added: "não podemos aceitar um genocídio, que é o que está acontecendo" ("we cannot accept a genocide, which is what is happening").
• In September 2025 Brazil filed a declaration of intervention in South Africa's case against "Israel" under the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice.

Arms and military cooperation

• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) records 19 Israeli arms deals with Brazil. They include Python-3, Python-4 and Derby air-to-air missiles, radars and targeting pods for Brazilian combat aircraft, EL/M-2022 maritime radars, Elbit Hermes-450 and Hermes-900 drones, Lizard guided bombs, Spike anti-tank missiles delivered in 2024, and UT-30BR turrets produced under licence in Brazil for Guarani armoured vehicles.
• The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) says Elbit has two Brazilian subsidiaries, AEL Sistemas and Ares Aeroespacial e Defesa, and that Brazil has defence cooperation agreements with "Israel", the latest signed in March 2019, as well as an agreement on public security and "the fight against organized crime".
• In May 2024 the Brazilian army chose Elbit to supply 36 ATMOS 2000 self-propelled howitzers in a $210 million deal. Defense News reported in October 2024 that the deal was "frozen" over Lula's criticism of the war in Gaza, though not formally cancelled.
• CAAT, citing the Stop the Wall campaign, also reports a non-competitive R$86 million contract for Israel Aerospace Industries over 58 months to maintain two Heron-I drones for the Brazilian Air Force.

Surveillance

The Brazilian intelligence agency ABIN bought the FirstMile phone-location software from the company Cognyte at the end of 2018 for R$5.7 million. G1 describes FirstMile as "um software de tecnologia israelense" ("software using Israeli technology") that locates targets from their mobile phone signals. In October 2023 federal police arrested two ABIN officers and carried out 25 search warrants in an investigation into its suspected illegal use to track people under the Bolsonaro government.

Ehud Barak's emails

The following items come from the two leaked mailboxes of the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister Ehud Barak (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.

• Julius Baer speaking tours. The Swiss private bank Julius Baer, through its head for Latin America, Gustavo Raitzin, organised events with clients for Barak. A July 2013 plan from the bank set out dinners and lunches in Santiago de Chile (7–11 August), Montevideo (11–12 August) and São Paulo (from 12 August).
• São Paulo, August 2013. On 31 July 2013 Julius Baer sent Nili Priell Barak what it called "the invitation list" for a lunch and a dinner with Barak on 13 August in a private dining room at the Hotel Fasano. She forwarded it to him the same day. The bank wrote that GPS "confirms 11 clients or prospects". These were to be joined by Raitzin, by Marc Braendlin, the bank's "Market Head Brazil" (marked "tbc"), and by four GPS partners: Jan Karsten and Marcio Lewensztajn at lunch, and George Wachsmann and Roberto Rudge at dinner. GPS Investimentos Financeiros e Participações was a Brazilian firm in which Julius Baer raised its holding from 30% to 80% at the end of April 2014; the bank's 2015 half-year results call it a "Brazilian subsidiary". The descriptions below are the bank's and GPS's own, unverified, accounts of their clients and prospects.
  • For lunch the table listed two bank clients, "indication BJB". The first was Daniel Mehler, "owner of a Textile Factory in Sao Paulo (ADATEX) funded in 1950 by his grandfather. It specializes in producing lycra tissue. Has some 500 employees". The second was Adrian Extrakt, "one of the owners -with other two brothers- of a cosmetic factory in Sao Paulo that specializes in hair inks and some creams for the body", which "Have some 400 employees". The GPS invitees for lunch were:
    • Benjamin Nussbacher, "the founder of the group Tonbras / Radex, one of the most important manufacturers dedicated to office supplies in Brazil", and his son André Nussbacher.
    • Jacks Rabinovich, who built Vicunha Textil. GPS wrote that in 1993 the Vicunha Group "joined a consortium that won the bid for the privatization of Companhia Siderurgica Nacional – CSN", and that he sold his stake in 2005.
    • "Jame" (in the bios, Jaime) Teig, "the founder of S. Teig Participações, a large real-estate company".
    • "Mario" (in the bios, Marcio) Rochwerger, "Former head of Latam Equity Unit at Morgan Stanley".
    • Renato Ochman, a founding partner of the law firm Ochman, Real Amadeo Associates.
  • For dinner the GPS invitees were:
    • André Alckmin, who "started StoreID, one of the largest providers of storage and information management services in Brazil" and sold it to a multinational.
    • Gustavo Ioschpe, "Heir of Ioschpe Family, one of the largest suppliers of the auto industry in Brazil" and founder of BigData, together with Iris Kaufman.
    • Henri de Kerchove, who has "investments in the bioenergy derived from palm biomass production and in a thermal power plant" in northern Brazil.
    • Luiz Fernando Rudge, "CEO of Promon S/A, one of Brazil´s largest engineering companies".
  • The list records invitations, not confirmed attendance.
• São Paulo, November 2014. On 31 October 2014 Julius Baer sent Nili Priell Barak agendas for a dinner on 3 November and a lunch on 4 November at the Fasano, with notes on each guest. She forwarded them to Barak on 2 November. By then Julius Baer controlled GPS. The descriptions below are the bank's own, unverified, accounts of its clients, and the lists are planned guest lists, not records of who attended.
  • The 3 November dinner list named Barak, Nili Barak, Raitzin, Braendlin, the GPS partners George Wachsmann and Jan Karsten, and the relationship manager Daniel Justo. The bank clients listed were:
    • Isaac Sverner, who "owned CCE (one of the largest electronics and appliances companies in Brazil specialized in computers, TVs and audio) and sold it to Lenovo".
    • David Zilberman, whose family's SARA Joias "manage 8 shops throughout Brazil", including the Hublot and Rolex shops in Rio de Janeiro.
    • Bruno and Ronaldo Heilberg, who "used to be the owners of Grupo Scalina", a lingerie maker. "In 2010 they sold to Carlyle Group 51 % of the company for around USD 150-200 MM". Under "Business with Israel" the bank noted that Scalina "buys Nylon from" the Israeli company NILIT.
    • David Kattan, who worked for the Safra Group from 1985 to 2008, is a partner at Kondor Asset Management, and "has a strong relationship with Israel".
    • Daniel Mehler, owner of Adatex, with "No direct relations to Israel".
    • The GPS client Marcio Rochwerger, formerly "Head of the Equities Desk in the Morgan Stanley Brazil".
  • The 4 November lunch list named Barak, Nili Barak, Raitzin, Braendlin, "George Wachsmann or Roberto Rudge (Partner GPS)", the relationship managers Marcel Schwaninger and Daniel Justo, and Daniel Wainstein, "Head of Greenhill Brazil". The bank clients listed were:
    • Adrian E., "the owner of the Salon Line, a cosmetic factory".
    • Michael S., who "owns a credit bank in Rio de Janeiro".
    • Herry Rosenberg, "a director of the Jewish Confederation in Rio de Janeiro".
    • Claudio L., "President of the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, Ophthalmologist, President of CONIB, Confederação Israelita do Brasil (since 2008)".
    • Samuel Levy, Jacques G. and Esther B., described as having careers in finance and academia and as members of the think tank Synergia.
    • Mr. G. Schulze, who "Owns and manages the 2nd largest Fitness Center chain in Brazil".
  • The GPS clients on the lunch list were:
    • George Longo, a farmer in Bahia.
    • Sergio Vladimirshi Jr, "partner of Comexport Comércio Exterior, a diversified trading with an annual turnover of $1 billion".
    • Alan Goldlust, also a partner at Comexport.
  • One-to-one meetings were also scheduled with the Zilberman family on 3 November and with Michael S., Herry R. and Claudio L. before the 4 November lunch.
• Reporty in Rio de Janeiro, 2016. In March 2016 Gidi Levanon, an Israeli property investor living in Rio de Janeiro, wrote to Barak in Hebrew after reading about the Israeli security app Reporty, saying the Brazilian market needed something like it. Barak introduced him to Reporty's chief executive, Amir Elichai: "Really great app. Extremely useful. You are now e-introduced." In April Levanon told Elichai that he would "present the system and application very soon to RJ city head of C2I and head of security forces", and asked what a pilot in the city would involve, suggesting the August 2016 Olympics as a possible moment.

The emails do not show whether the system was presented or a pilot took place.

Trade

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics lists Brazil separately. In 2025 "Israel" imported goods worth $320.2 million from Brazil (2024: $454.8 million) and exported goods worth $1,261.2 million to it (2024: $1,147.6 million).

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics counts immigrants born in Brazil as follows:

• 304 in 1948–51;
• 763 in 1952–60;
• 2,601 in 1961–71;
• 1,763 in 1972–79;
• 1,763 in 1980s;
• 1,940 in 1990s;
• 6,441 in 2000–2020;
• 495 in 2021;
• 359 in 2022;
• 256 in 2023.

Political interference

UN voting

In September 2025 Brazil voted for the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.

Jeffrey Epstein

BBC News Brasil found about 4,000 mentions of Brazil in the files released by the US Justice Department in early 2026.

• A June 2010 deposition by a former employee of a model agent, given in Florida, says Epstein travelled to Brazil to see clients and had a contact there who supplied him with girls, including minors. It says four girls from Brazil were brought by Jean-Luc Brunel to a party at one of Epstein's homes, at least two of them aged between 13 and 15, and that Epstein paid for their visas.
• In 2016 emails Epstein discussed buying a Brazilian model agency and the idea of a model competition in Brazil, which a correspondent said would bring him younger girls and new faces. Folha de S.Paulo reports that the owner of Ford Models Brazil said the agency was never for sale and that he never had contact with Epstein or intermediaries.
• Folha reports emails from 2018 in which Steve Bannon discussed with Epstein his relationship with Jair Bolsonaro during the presidential campaign. There is no indication that Bolsonaro took part in the conversations or had direct contact with Epstein.
• In other emails Epstein claimed to have received a call from Noam Chomsky with Lula on the line while Lula was in prison in Curitiba in 2018. Lula's office denied that the call took place.
• Reinaldo Ávila da Silva, the Brazilian husband of Peter Mandelson, received £10,000 from Epstein, according to the Financial Times; emails show several transfers in 2009 and 2010 to help him train as an osteopath.
• The architect Arthur Casas was approached by Epstein's assistant in 2016 about a project on Epstein's island. His office says he made a single preliminary technical visit to the island.
• Emails from 2012 and 2013 between Epstein and the British lobbyist Ian Osborne mention the businessman Eike Batista, including a planned lunch with Elon Musk in the Caribbean in January 2013. Folha found no direct contact between Epstein and Batista.
• Folha also confirmed that Epstein had a Brazilian taxpayer number (CPF), active since 2003, and that emails show he discussed obtaining Brazilian citizenship.

See also

• Confederação Israelita do Brasil
• Elbit Systems
• Cognyte
• Israel Allies Foundation
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Argentina