From left to right: LAJC Director of Future Generations Ariel Isaak, LAJC Executive Director Claudio Epelman, Rabbi Shabsi Alpern, LAJC President Jack Terpins, President Lula Da Silva, First Lady Marisa Da Silva, Nicole Alter, Michael Esrubilsky and Justice Minister Tarso Genro
photo LAJC
On the occasion of the Jewish New Year, Brazil’s president Lula da Silva and his wife Marisa received a delegation from the Latin American Jewish Congress (LAJC) led by LAJC president Jack Terpins, who is also the head of the Brazilian Jewish community umbrella group, CONIB. The meeting took place at the Presidential Palace in the capital Brasilia. The LAJC delegation included young Jewish leaders from various Latin American countries.
On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, Jack Terpins conveyed the best wishes to the president and the Brazilian people in the name of the 120.000-strong Jewish community. Claudio Epelman, the executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, pointed out that Brazil was a democratic society in which the rights of minorities were respected, in particular the right to practice freely one’s religion and the right of parents to educate their children according to their faith.
At the end of the meeting, at which questions of current affairs were discussed, Lula and Terpins led a brief Rosh Hashanah celebration in which a number of rabbis and leaders from the different Jewish denominations in Brazil participated.
