Two Jews were included in the new government of the State of Rio de Janeiro, which was merged with the State of Guanabara on March 15. The new Governor of the Rio de Janeiro State, Admiral Faria Lima, appointed Yossef Barat, a 35-year-old Jewish engineer, as Secretary for Transportation. His main task will be to revive the construction of Rio’s subway which began five years ago and was halted due to the lack of funds.
The Governor also appointed Haim Lerner, a young Jewish architect, as “Coordinator of Greater Rio de Janeiro.” He will be responsible for the development of the merged state with its 9,400,000 inhabitants, and especially for the development of the state’s capital, Rio de Janeiro, with its five million inhabitants.
Lerner, the son of a traditional Jewish family, who speaks Yiddish and is a graduate from a Jewish school, served for the past four years as. Mayor of Curitiba, the capital of Brazil’s southern state of Parana. He is considered the best urbanist in the country and is responsible for having transformed Curitiba into the “most civilized city in Brazil,” according to the influential newspaper “O Globo.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
