Passport (1926/1926)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Welcoming the immigrants, the new members of the community
The number of Jewish immigrants arriving in São Paulo began to rise significantly around the time of the First World War. Approximatelyforty thousand immigrants entered the city between the 1910s and the first half of the 1930s. In order to aid and support each and every individual arriving in their multiple needs, the organizations Ezra and Caria were founded.
IlustrationJewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Illustrative diagram showing the activities developed at CIP, with emphasis on Social Assistance and Overseas Assistance activities. CIP continued the activities of the Comissão de Assistência aos Refugiados Israelitas da Alemanha (Commission for Assistance to Israeli Refugees from Germany - Caria), founded in 1933, which financially supported more than 300 refugee families, in cooperation with various international Jewish entities, such as Joint, Hias and JCA-Hicem.
Special edition of Crônica Israelita (1946/1946)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Special edition of Crônica Israelita (Israeli Chronicle), in December 1946, commemorative of the 10 years of the Congregação Israelita Paulista (Jewish Congregation of São Paulo - CIP). Created in 1936, CIP took over the assistance activities carried out by Caria.
Classroom at CIP with Rabbi Fritz Pinkuss teaching Hebrew, with a portrait of President Getulio Vargas on the back wall. CIP became the center of the community of Jewish-German immigrants who fled Nazism, developing a series of educational and assistance activities.
Passport (1910/1910)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Passport (1910/1910)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Immigrant passport expedited in the 1910s.
Passport (1920/1920)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Immigrant passport expedited in the 1920s.
PassportJewish Museum of Sao Paulo
German passports with “J” stamps, used by the Nazis to identify and mark Jews, as well as the names “Israel” and “Sara” compulsorily added to their names. With the rise of Nazism to power, hundreds of German Jewish immigrants and refugees arrived in Brazil.
Inauguration of the headquarters of the Sociedade Beneficente Ezra (Ezra Beneficent Society), at Rua Guarani in the Bom Retiro neighborhood, with the presence of Leon Feffer, state deputy Jacob Salvador Zveibil, Maurício Flank, Salomão Gurman, Josef Zilberberg, Adolpho Beresin (with his daughter) and Felipe Kauffman, 1963.
“When I first arrived, my husband did not have a house for us to live and, as immigration numbers were high, Ezra rented a very large house where there was a hall area for storing luggage, a manager’s office and a meeting room, and a number of ladies 3 from the Jewish community who helped out. When the immigrants first arrived, Ezra provided financial support until they found work."
- Mery Freidenson
book book (1930/1930)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Ezra's Registration book of the Letters of Calling, which helped in the process of obtaining the document required by the Brazilian government to receive the immigrants, 1930s; in many cases, men immigrated first and called their wives and children to come once they had managed to achieve minimum living conditions in Brazil.
Ezra directors (1953/1955)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Ezra directors, with Benjamin Kulikovsky (wearing a bow-tie) sitting in the center.
Luiza Lorch was born in São Paulo, daughter of Berta and Maurício Klabin, and spent her childhood and youth between Brazil and Europe. Luiza was directly involved in community and philanthropic activities, having been president of Gota de Leite (Drop of Milk) at B’nei B’rith and having been on the board of directors of the Lar das Crianças Israelita(s) da Sociedade das Damas Israelitas (Jewish Children's Home of the Jewish Ladies’ Society).
Luiz Lorch was born in Germany in 1894, where he studied medicine. He married Luiza Klabin in 1924 and, in 1928, immigrated to Brazil. As from 1933, with the arrival of Nazism to power, many Jewish immigrants from Germany began to arrive in Brazil and the couple Luiz and Luiza Lorch became the center of German-Jewish life in the city and the heart of an informal network of support for immigrants
Children (1940/1940)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Caring for the children and planting the future
Child care ensured the health and well-being of children whose families did not have the material conditions or structure to do so. The Jewish community maintained Gota de Leite, the Children's Home of the Ladies and the CIP Children's Home in the 1930s.
Boys and girls from CIP's Lar das Crianças in a theatrical presentation of the play “Noah’s Ark” in the entity's backyard, 1941.
Drawing representing some of the children sheltered and supported by the Lar da Crianças, a group made up of those who had no family or whose families, for various reasons, could not provide for them: paternal or maternal orphans, or children with disabled parents, children of recently-arrived immigrants and of “couples engaged in the struggle for daily bread”, 1947.
“For the community, it is the child itself that represents an inestimable value, regardless of the social strata in which he was born or the situation his parents currently face”. Alfredo Hisrschberg, 1946
Children’s rest hour at the Lar das Crianças das Damas (Ladies’ Children’s Home), which started to be run by Ofidas in 1940.
Meeting of the volunteers and collaborators of CIP’s Lar das Crianças.
Children cared for by CIP’s Lar das Crianças in everyday activities, 1946.
Façade of the Lar da Criança Israelita (Jewish Children’s Home), on Rua Jorge Velho, in the Bom Retiro neighborhood, inaugurated in 1939.
Women immigrants (1910/1910)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Women as the protagonists
Immigrant women organized themselves in various assistance entities from the 1910s onwards, carrying out work that allowed them to receive immigrants and structure the community in general, in particular, welcoming women and children.
In various parts of the country, women organized themselves into childcare organizations, such as the Sociedade de Proteção à Infância Israelita Desamparada, (Society for the Protection of Jewish Unsupported Children), founded in 1937
Minutes book of the Sociedade Beneficente das Damas Israelitas (Jewish Ladies’ Beneficent Society) founded in 1915. / Bertha Klabin’s signature in the meeting minutes notebook of the Sociedade das Damas Israelitas as the society’s president, 1930.
Commemorative stamp of the 60 years of the Organização Feminina Israelita de Assistência Social (Jewish Women Organization for Social Service – Ofidas).
Social services assistant allocated at the Ofidas headquarters in front of the photographs of the founders of the Sociedade das Damas Israelitas, Olga Tabacow, Bertha Klabin and Olga Nebel, 1959.
Elisa Kaufman, on the right holding a pencil, with other Ofidas’ workers and volunteers, 1960.
Joint campaign (1947/1947)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
international organizations
The gigantic effort that combined emigration and the search for destinations for the immigrants involved negotiating with governments from different countries, providing documentation and tickets, safe travel and contacts at the places where they were to arrive.
Map of the Philippson colony, founded by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) in Rio Grande do Sul.
Four Brothers ColonyJewish Museum of Sao Paulo
In the Colônia de Quatro Irmãos (Four Brothers Colony), founded by JCA in Rio Grande do Sul, the school was a central institution and JCA itself was responsible for bringing teachers of Jewish culture.
Settlers of the Colônia de Quatro Irmãos, one of the colonies formed by JCA in Rio Grande do Sul.
Publication of Joint’s Auxiliary Committee launches campaigns to raise funds for aid entities – orphanages, schools, children's homes and institutes – in several countries, posing the dramatic question “How much is a child's life worth?”
Report on the activities of assistance provided by Joint and an illustrative diagram of the aid given in 1941.
Under the motto “Salvemos os sobreviventes” (“Let’s save the survivors”), the Joint Auxiliary Committee launches the 1946 campaign to “save the victims who escaped the Nazi rage”.
“São os filhos de nosso povo” (“They are the children of our people”) was the motto of the Joint campaign to assist 150 thousand children, many of them orphans, living in a vulnerable situation in Europe, 1947.
Ezra SanatoriumJewish Museum of Sao Paulo
taking care of health
The Jewish community looked after the health of immigrants and its members by way of medical appointments, by providing medication, outpatient procedures as well as support for surgeries and hospitalizations. The main organizations that provided healthcare aid were the Policlínica Linath Hatzedek and the Sanatório de Tuberculosos da Ezra (Ezra Tuberculosis Sanatorium),
Opening of the meeting minutes book of the board of the Sociedade Beneficente Linath Hatzedek (Linath Hatzedek Beneficent Society), written in Yiddish.
Minutes of the first meeting of the founders of the Sociedade Beneficente Linath Hatzedek, in which they explain the need to create an entity to help the sick in the “Israeli Colony”, specifying as objectives the loan of necessary objects and “watching over the sick confrere”, 1929.
Board of Directors of the Sociedade Beneficente Linath Hatzedek, founded in 1929.
Entrance gate to the Ezra Sanatorium in São José dos Campos.
Employees who attended to patients with tuberculosis, a highly prevalent and lethal disease, without effective drug treatment until the 1940s.
Employee in the laboratory and the preparation of medication in the Ezra Sanatorium.
First X-ray machine, essential in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, installed at the Ezra Sanatorium in 1939.
Corridor of the pavilion at the Ezra Sanatorium with chairs for sunbathing and resting, part of the treatment against tuberculosis.
Ezra received patients from Jewish communities across the country, as well as collecting donations, registered in “Books of gold”, in dozens of subcommittees spread throughout Brazil.
Group of studentsJewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Promoting Education
At school, immigrant children found a favourable environment for their insertion into the country, spent time with other children and gained autonomy to find their own paths in society, without being under the tutelage of adults.
Group of students from Gymnasio Hebraico-Brasileiro Renascença (Renaissance Hebrew-Brazilian Preparatory High School) visiting the Monument tothe Independence, in the square of the Ipiranga Museum, 1933.
Students and teachers from the Ginásio Hatchia para meninos e meninas (Hatchia Preparatory High School for boys and girls”), according to a plaque in Hebrew in the center of the photo, with Brazilian and Zionist symbols.
School presentation of the students from the Escola Israelita-Brasileira Luiz Fleitlich (Luiz Fleitlich Hebrew-Brazilian School) in the celebratory Simchat Torá party, 1938.
School presentation of the students from the Escola Luiz Fleitlich in the Brás neighborhood.
Teacher and children at a school located on Rua Três Rios, in the Bom Retiro neighborhood, in the 1920s and 1930s.
Elementary boys’ class at the Escola Talmud Torá (Talmud Torah School)
Escola Israelita do Cambuci (Cambuci’s Hebrew School), a neighborhood where there was a nucleus of the Jewish community.
David VaieJewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Work and Opportunities
Finding work was an essential concern of the immigrants. The aid organizations provided wholehearted support in this process, seeing that work would ensure the livelihood and the autonomy of the newcomers, allowing the same entities to care for others who continued to arrived.
Directors and employees in front of the headquarters of Cooperativa de Crédito do Bom Retiro.
“I believe that the Cooperativa’s greatest merit was that it was a bank that served the community, wherein people with very few resources who had a guarantor (who at times wasn’t very rich either) could take out a loan to get on with their lives."
- Schmuel Lev
Cooperativa de Crédito Popular’s (Bom Retiro’s Popular Credit Cooperative’s) piggy bank campaign with the motto “Your daughter deserves a promising future”.
Vocational sewing class for girls offered by Ofidas.
Facade of the ORT’s vocational school, a community initiative that offered vocational and technical courses to “educate their children for a hard life that still awaits us in the future, and lay the foundation for the youth to be able to earn their living with dignity”.
Asylo dos Velhos (1941/1941)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Commitment to the elderly
The support to senior immigrants soon became a need within the Jewish community, particularly in light of the fact that many men and women were no longer young upon arriving in the country, they had lost their families in the war and were now alone.
Many of the elderly people cared for had specific needs and physical limitations that required special care. The José Teperman Pavilion, on the ground floor, facilitated access for wheelchair users.
Doctors and a nurse guaranteed the care of a sick patient at the Lar dos Velhos (Senior Care Home).
Facade of the old building of the Asylo dos Velhos on Rua Dr. Pinto Ferraz, in the Vila Mariana neighborhood, inaugurated in 1941.
Entrance to one of the pavilions, from the Home’s central garden.
Group of residents of the Lar dos Velhos playing cards. Dignity and community life for those most in need.
The Teperman Family at a ceremony in the synagogue at the Lar dos Velhos in the 1940s.
Aron Hakodesh and Bimá form the synagogue of the Lar dos Velhos.
Compaign Unida (1947/1947)Jewish Museum of Sao Paulo
Post-World War II
After World War II and the Holocaust, refugees and immigrants arrived in Brazil and in São Paulo and, in addition to the entities that were already established, new organizations emerged to provide support to the newcomers.
On October 5, 1944, the front page of the newspaper Crônica Israelita highlighted the first lists of survivors and actions to aid European Jews. In the post-war period, the Jewish community provided substantial help to immigrants and Jews from overseas.
The 1947 Unida (United) Campaign to promote the settling of the new immigrants and local social services.
The Centro Israelita de Assistência ao Menor (Jewish Center for Assistance to Minors – Ciam), created in 1959 by parents, organizations and professionals from the Jewish community, provided assistance to “exceptional children”, term used during that period.
Ciam’s promotional leaflet, an entity created to serve “exceptional children”, as was said at the time, “a big problem that few people know about and that very few people try to understand”.
A publication by the Liga Feminina Israelita do Brasil (Jewish Women’s League of Brazil) which, in 1956, began running the Oficina Abrigada de Trabalho (Sheltered Workshop) created by Hias.
In the post-war period, Oficinas Abrigadas de Trabalho were created to attend to people with difficulties in entering the labor market, such as the one founded by Hias and the one that operated within the Lar dos Velhos.
CEO
Felipe Arruda
DIRECTOR OF COLLECTIONS AND MEMORY
Roberta Sundfeld
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATION
Marilia Neustein
DIRECTOR OF CURATOR AND PARTICIPATION
Ilana Feldman
Exposição Laços da Imigração: Acolhimento dos judeus pelas instituições no Brasil
COORDINATION
PROJECT MANAGER OF THE CENTRO MEMÓRIA OF MUSEU JUDAICO OF SÃO PAULO
Linda Derviche Blaj
CURATOR
Roney Cytrynowicz
HISTORICAL AND ICONOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Narrative One - History Projects and Research
Monica Musatti Cytrynowicz
GRAPHIC PROJECT
Zoldesign
TEAM OF THE CENTRO MEMÓRIA OF MUSEU JUDAICO OF SÃO PAULO
Maria Theodora Falcão Barbosa (Coordenadora de acervo)
Leonardo Nogueira Vitulli (Arquivista)
José Messias Ribeiro Santos (Zelador)
Jemima Novaes Siqueira (Atendimento)
PROGRAMMING ON Google Arts & Culture
Erika Costa
TEXT REVIEW
Mariangela Paganini
IMAGE SCAN
Julia Thompson
