In his previous life, Wilson Miranda Filho would travel by boat up the Amazon River for nearly six days, then walk another three days through dense jungle, machete in hand, to deliver medications and malaria vaccines to villages with no electricity, no roads and residents without citizenship.
Today, he wakes at 5 a.m. in Efrat to pray vatikin, the prayer recited at sunrise, and spends every spare hour studying Torah.
Now known as Micha, he is 62, athletic and upright, with a white beard, sidelocks and pale blue eyes that still seem to carry decades of navigating the unknown. Born in Brazil and raised in a modest Catholic family, he served for six years in a military search-and-rescue unit comparable to Israel’s Unit 669.
“After my military service, I worked for decades as a guide in the Amazon jungle, accompanying tourists and expeditions of archaeologists and researchers,” he recounts. At the same time, Micha volunteered with an organization that assists local Indigenous communities in northern Brazil belonging to the Yanomami people.
“Many times, rain accompanied me the entire way. Even sleeping in the rain became routine,” he says.
It was there, in one of the most remote places on earth, that he first encountered the God of Israel.
“My initial connection to Judaism began with a lecture on science by a Jewish speaker who wove in insights from Jewish wisdom,” he recalls. “But at that time, among the trees of the jungle, something inside me shifted. Something touched my innermost soul and led me to what would become the beginning of a spiritual journey.”
He began studying alone, buying books and reading everything he could find. Later, he connected with the Jewish community in São Paulo, traveling more than two hours each way for morning prayers. He kept coming, day after day, slowly finding his place, largely on his own.
Eventually, he concluded that if he was serious about conversion, he would need to do it in Israel.
In 2013, he moved to Israel and spent about six months in a conversion ulpan and at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, exploring different parts of the religious world as he searched for his place within it. The fit was not right, and he returned to Brazil.
But he never let go of Judaism. He continued learning on his own, following the weekly Torah portion and the teachings of the sages, observing blessings and holidays as best he understood them.
Years later, wiser and more grounded in his search, he decided to return and finish what he had started. Through former ulpan students, he was introduced to Rabbanit Renana Birnbaum, director of the Ohr Torah Stone conversion program.
“This time was different,” he says. “At Ohr Torah Stone, I was not only guided, I was welcomed warmly and given help finding housing and daily structure.”
Micha has been studying at the ulpan for five months and received formal Rabbinate approval to begin the official conversion track two months ago. He considers himself only at the beginning of the process and expects a long road ahead, but he intends to remain in Israel permanently and build his life here.
“Micha is entirely heart and entirely soul,” says Rabbanit Birnbaum. “He doesn’t make life easy for us as teachers, because he asks questions that force us to think deeply.”
As an example, she recalls a recent discussion he initiated while learning about Lag BaOmer and the tradition that Yehuda ben Gerim spoke against Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai to the Romans.
“Micha asked countless questions: Why would a convert fail in this way, and was it related to a lack of respect for converts? He felt that, as a convert, he would expect very different behavior,” she says.
“I feel that he refines us through questions that come from such a deep place,” Rabbanit Birnbaum adds. “There is something unique about him. His inside matches his outside. That is why his process is so long and pure. That is something extraordinary in a person joining the Jewish people. We need many more like him to remind us to think and feel.”
Micha has kept the discipline he built over a lifetime. He exercises daily, cycles regularly and, two weeks ago, completed the Jerusalem half-marathon with a backpack on his back.
“I feel very connected to the Jewish people,” he says. “For me, I have already fulfilled my dream: to live in the Land of Israel and study Torah. This is where I want to continue building my life.”