Brazil’s Government Under Fire by the Press for Awarding Tv Licenses to Jewish-owned Firms

— Leading newspapers have attacked the government for awarding much sought after television licenses to Jewishowned firms, one headed by an immigrant from Czarist Russia and the other by a Brazilian-born son of immigrants.

The licenses granted by the Communications Ministry are for nine TV channels in Rio, Sao Paulo and other cities. Although radio and television are private enterprises, they are controlled by the government. The channels in question were applied for by several groups, including Journal do Brasil, published here, and the Abril publishing company in Sao Paulo.

But they were assigned to Manchete, a mass circulation illustrated weekly owned by the Rio-based Bloch Publishing Co. which is headed by Adolpho Bloch, 73, who was born in Byelo-Russia; and to Silvio Santos, 51, who heads the Sistema Brasileiro de Televisao Ltda. Bloch, whose small printing business established in Rio about 50 years ago grew into one of the largest publishing companies in Latin America with over 2000 employes, identifies himself as “a Brazilian Jew and a Zionist.”

Santos, born Abravanel, is the son of Jewish immigrants from Greece. He began his career as a pushcart peddler, became a producer of television programs in 1968 and is considered to be one of the wealthiest men in Brazil. He is not identified with the Jewish community.

The daily, O Estado de Sao Paulo, criticized the government’s choice of a naturalized “foreigner” (Bloch) and a “merchant” (Abravanel) to purvey national culture. The Estado editorial was widely reprinted in other newspapers under the haedline “Cultural Poverty.”