The first organized and complete census of Brazilian Jewry will get under way here soon as a result of the decision adopted recently at a meeting of the Jewish institutions and fraternal organizations of Brazil. The meeting was called in connection with the visit of J. L. Gruzman, editor of the Argentine weekly Der Shpigel, where the findings of the census will receive first publication.
The meeting which decided upon the census also appropriated an initial sum of money for carrying on the work and appointed a committee to do it.
All Jewish inhabitants of Brazil will be registered according to occupation, in the hope that the census will yield a complete picture of Jewish life in Brazil, and thus give some idea as to the advisability of bringing a larger number of Jewish refugees from Germany to Brazil.
The committee will do research on old documents about Jews prominent in the rise of Brazil’s culture. Such material will also be positive evidence of the part which those Jews who have come here in the last few decades have taken in the development of the country. Such materials are scattered throughout the country in various archives, and very few of them have thus far been published in Yiddish.
Der Shpigel will publish the results of the census in special regional editions. The work will begin in Sao Paulo, the largest industrial center in South America, where Jews have organized a network of factories, making this the center of Jewish industry. Isaac Raizman, of the editorial staff of the leading Yiddish daily here, has been chosen to visit all Jewish settlements, including the very smallest, and to collect all available data and material concerning Jewish life.
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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.
