J. D. B. News Letter

Foreign Notes By J. T. A. Correspondents

Big strides are being made in Brazil by the educational and moral work inaugurated less than six years ago by the Jewish Colonization Association, Ica, reports received at its headquarters here indicate. The Ica’s special representative in Brazil, Rabbi Raffalovich, has just completed a tour of nearly two months in the South of the country, in the course of which he visited a large number of places. He was everywhere received with joy by the flourishing Jewish communities, which seized this opportunity of expressing to the Ica their feelings of attachment and gratitude. The Ica envoy was particularly touched by the reception given him in the colony of Quatro Irmaos, where a religious service was spontaneously organized in memory of Baron and Baroness de Hirsch.

Rabbi Raffalovich is regarded everywhere today as the spiritual head of Brazilian Jewry. The President of the State of Parana, whom he recently visited with the President of the Jewish community of Curityba, while he was passing through the place, was anxious to assure him in the most flattering terms, of the esteem in which he holds the Jewish Colonization Association, the protector of the Jews of Brazil. Rabbi Raffalovich inspected the school at Curityba, which has 60 pupils. He afterwards inaugurated the new building of the Jewish Community, which contains a synagogue, a library and a communal hall.

Rabbi Raffalovich has also been placed by the Ica at the service of the unified Association Hias-Ica-Emigdirekt. He has on behalf of this organization established reception committees for immigrants into the entire territory of Brazil. Before his departure from Curityba he placed the immigration service there on a sure foundation.

In the course of his tour, M. Raffalovich was able, with the financial help of the Ica, to found a new school at Rio Grande. In the same locality he organized an immigration committee of the Hicem. This small community, which owes everything to the Ica, has expressed special gratitude to it. At Porto Alegre the Jewish schools have been reorganized, and a loan-bank will be opened. At Cachoeira the little Jewish community, numbering 25 families, assembled on the day of Purim around the rabbi, who officiated in the hall which at present serves both as school and synagogue. The Jews of the locality were anxious to mark the day by a special effort, in accordance with Jewish tradition: a comparatively large sum was subscribed to the collection organized for the benefit of the Jewish famine victims in Bessarabia.

In the Ica’s colony at Quatro Irmaos the young men and girls of the Baron- (Continued on Page 4)

There is still much work to be done, but it is already possible to see what the Ica and the Hicem, since its creation, have achieved in Brail in a period of less than six years. Thanks to their activity, a regular stream of Jewish immigration has proceeded into the country, loan-banks have been set up and are constantly developing; there are special facilities permitting the immigrants, once they are settled, to send for their relatives in Europe. It is wholly due to the Ica that a big advance has been made in the Jewish educational work, which is infusing new life into Brailian Jewry and is giving them a place in the modern Jewish world.

The national authorities appreciate this activity and the advance made as a result of it and recognize the remarkable development of the agricultural colonies of the Ica. The President of the Rio Grande do Sul, in the same way as the President of the Parana, paid a high tribute to the Ica’s work in a recent interview with the managers of the Ica work at Quatro Irmaos, praising the methods of the Ica. Quatro Irmaos has now been transformed into a municipality, which insures the colony a better status from many angles. On hearing that the schools for the children of the colonists are receiving no government subsidy, the President promised to have a trained instructor sent out shortly at the expense of the State, in order to teach French in the schools.