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Jews in the Tropics: Bahian Jews in the Early Twentieth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Esther Regina Largman  and
Robert M. Levine
Esther Regina Largman
Affiliation:
Rio de Janeiro, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida
Robert M. Levine
Affiliation:
Rio de Janeiro, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida
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Extract

A monarchy based on the slave plantation labor of Africans until the late nineteenth century, vast Brazil offered little appeal to European immigrants except in the far south of the country, where smaller plots of arable land became available as the coffee frontier expanded. Facing shortages in slave supply after mid-century, when the British forced the Brazilians to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade, provincial governments attempted to lure European immigrants by granting subsidies to pay for transport and for initial costs of settlements. In 1881, the Imperial government joined in the effort to recruit immigrants who, in addition to providing a replenished work force, could also be counted on to “whiten” the population. Germans predominated among immigrants until 1886, followed by Italians, Poles, and some Japanese until the 1930's, when rising xenophobia led Brazilian officials to curtail immigration and to install a restrictive quota system.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , October 1986 , pp. 159 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1986

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Footnotes

*

Much of the detail in this analysis was based on interviews conducted by Esther Regina Largman with some of the members of Salvador's surviving Jewish community, and with former residents who later moved to Rio de Janeiro. Robert M. Levine also conducted interviews during a research trip to the Northeast.

References

1 On Brazilian racial attitudes, see Skidmore, Thomas E., Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.Google Scholar Subsidies from the Imperial government were ended shortly after they began, leaving the provinces (later states) on their own. Thus the wealthier units, mostly in the South, continued to subsidize immigrants from Europe while the impoverished northern units were unable to do so. See Levine, Robert M., Pernamhuco in the Brazilian Federation, 1889–1937. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980.Google Scholar

2 See Elkin, Judith Laikin, Jews of the Latin American Republics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), p. 45.Google Scholar

3 The census was compiled for the visiting Central Council of American Rabbis, whose representatives toured Latin America investigating the need for institutional support, especially in those cities where no rabbis had emigrated. See CCAR Yearbook, 1890-.

4 For a detailed treatment of the confusing and often violent world of Bahian politics, see Pang, Eul-Soo, Bahia in the First Brazilian Republic: Coronelismo and Oligarchies, 1889–1934. Gainesville: University of Florida Presses, 1979.Google Scholar

5 Based on information in Pang, Eul-Soo, Ibid.; author’s interview with Lemle, Rabbi Henrique, de Janeiro, Rio, April 1966.Google Scholar

6 de Souza, José Luiz, “Lembrança d'Apparecida: Algumas Notas sobre as primeiras estampas da imagem” (Guaratinguetá, São Paulo: Departamento Municipal de Cultura, 1984) p. 3;Google Scholar author's interview with Dr. José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, São Paulo, November 1984.

7 L.B.G.E., Recenseamento Geral do Brasil (1940) (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1941), p. 66.

8 See for example, Havighurst, Robert J. and Moreira, J. Roberto. Society and Education in Brazil. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1965.Google Scholar

9 See Brandão, Darwin, Cidade do Salvador (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1958), p. 203.Google Scholar

10 See Idishe Folkslaytung (A Gazeta Israelita), Rio de Janeiro, for the period.

11 Interviews with Esther Regina Largman.

12 For an account of the efforts of some members of the community to integrate themselves into local voluntary associations, including Masonic Lodges, see Kulwin, Clifford M., The Emergence oj Progressive Judaism in South America. Rabbinic Thesis, Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, 1983.Google Scholar

13 Judith Laikin Elkin, p. 65. On the matter of white slave traffic among Jewish emigrants to Latin America, see Bristow, Edward J., Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against Slavery. 1870–1939. New York: Schocken Books, c. 1982.Google Scholar

14 S.I.B. archival material made available to Esther Regina Largman.