Getting ready for Purim?
Photo: Reuters
Purim in Rio de Janeiro
Where are all the Israeli backpackers hiding on Purim? What is the alternative to Hamentashen? What costumes do the locals wear? Tamara Novis explores Brazil and connects to her inner Jew
Five months have passed since I left for South America and until now I have managed to avoid the Jewish experience. I simply have not joined any synagogue and certainly not any Chabad house. However, Purim in Rio de Janeiro changed my spiritual feelings to the extreme.
It began with the fact that Purim is always a good excuse to party. It became clear that the best place to celebrate in Rio de Janeiro in costume was in the synagogue. For our purposes we chose the Bnei Akiva synagogue in the Copacabana neighborhood.
Before I left the hostel I hung a carnival necklace, plastic cups, lemons and straws on me and wrote Caipirinha on my forehead. I marched with my friends Strawberry Daiquiri and Pina Colada down the street, and thought to myself that only in this crazy Brazil did my group not look strange. More than once I have seen men running down the street wearing only underwear (and not boxers) and people whose entire bodies are painted red or green in order to raise money for one thing or another.
We arrived at a building that does not look at all like a synagogue, other than the threatening guard who asked to see our Israeli passport. We did not have to show any documents because they recognized Pina Colada from last Friday. A smiling girl in an IDF uniform wished us a happy Purim, and I felt even more at home when I saw three other people dressed as Nagen David Adom volunteers. Then the most Brazilian Megillah reading I have ever heard began.
When “Haman’s” name was called out the first time, two guys entered the men’s section with large drums (one of them was dressed as a soccer field) and joined the merry rhythm of whistles coming from the women’s gallery. Again Mordechai scored a goal! The referee (a clown with a red wig, who was the Rabbi of course) tried to oversee the volume which almost reached that of the Maracana stadium. Only hotdogs were missing - but soon that would come as well.
The Bnei Akiva synagogue is much more than a synagogue. It is a school during the week, a branch of Bnei Akiva on Shabbat and a place to buy kosher food. On Friday nights, some of the congregants, Orthodox Jews of all streams, have a habit of eating together at the Sephardi synagogue in Copacabana. Some of them wear a kippah on their heads all week and some take them off when they go dancing Saturday night in Lapa, the recreational center of Rio.
Jewish trance
After we discovered how the Jewish people were saved 2,500 years ago (and along the way got rid of thousands of their enemies), we continued to the adjoining hall, where a Purim party awaited us.
How do they celebrate Purim in Brazil? The Rabbi sprayed the children with the foam that was left over from Carnaval, the boys danced in a circle to Hassidic music, black waiters gave out cola and hotdogs and the city of Rio rejoiced and was glad.
Meanwhile we met two new friends who suggested we join them on a tour of all the hot Purim parties in town. Obviously we jumped at the chance. And so, three cocktails and two guys a little less dressed up (for them costumes are more for the children) got into the car.
Purim here. The Chabad party
The first stop was at a trance party at the plaza of the Sephardi synagogue. Dozens of Brazilian Jews were jumping to Hip-Hop music and drunkenly celebrating with a few Israelis. At the front of the building hung a huge poster that looked like a discotheque decoration, except for the cute boy in the middle with payot holding a Torah.
After we let out some energy and ate chips in pita we continued to paint the (Jewish) town red. We went to the Lubavitch Chabad house, where we finally understood where all the Israeli backpackers were hiding on Purim.
In a large impressive building hundreds of long haired Hebrews danced in wild circles with the Jewish locals, stopping only for a chips break (the national Purim food) or to find a match with an Israeli girl from a good family. Children ran around them dressed in their father’s shtreimels and the backpackers tried to remember who made whom coffee and on which trek.
The first prayer outside Israel
A week later I joined a fascinating tour to the overlook on Corcovado Mountain, where the impressive famous statue of Jesus stands. Without a doubt, Rio is one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever been.
The city sits at the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. In its midst there is a lake and between its coasts there are high green mountains. By the weekend, for the first time during my trip I felt like going to synagogue, not specifically as a religious experience, but more to feel a part of the community.
After services the Israeli Bnei Akiva emissaries, together with four local leaders of the Bnei Akiva branch, invited me to a Shabbat meal. The leaders, three college students and one high school student, were divided into two groups: those who have already visited Israel (through the “Taglit” project) and those who were planning to soon visit Israel.
In fluent Hebrew they explained to me that generally the families begin to observe Shabbat after their children, who are exposed to Jewish content in Bnei Akiva. One of the leaders said that he gives his mother lessons in Judaism, and his friend hopes that soon her father will start keeping Kosher. “Would you go out with a non-Jewish girl?” I asked one of them. “No… maybe just for one night”, he smiled.
The emissaries’ sweet daughter spoke perfect Portuguese and showed us the local Capoeira moves. She is only four. Brazil or no Brazil. At the end of the evening the leaders escorted me back to the hostel, I could not hold back and asked them: “You’re not afraid to live here, in a city with such a high crime rate?” “No” one of them answered, “God watches over us”.
