In this presentation, Michael Rom will explore the participation of Brazilian Jews in political movements throughout the Cold War. From Zionist and communist activists who fought against antisemitic immigration restrictions and the presence of Holocaust perpetrators in Brazil’s postwar democracy (1945-64), to Jewish students who were part of underground organizations that sought to overthrow the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-85), Brazilian Jews have consistently played central roles in Brazilian political movements. Through this political activism, they sought to affirm and define belonging in their nation-state, ethnic community, and generation, while grappling with national myths about race, transnational political ideologies, and local and global forms of state violence. Drawing on extensive archival research conducted in Brazil, Israel, and the United States, Brazilian newspapers in Portuguese and Yiddish, and oral history interviews with Brazilian Jewish political activists, this research situates Brazilian Jewish politics of belonging within the transnational contexts of the immediate of the Holocaust, Cold War superpower rivalries, Latin American revolutionary insurgencies, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A light reception, book sales, and signing will follow the program.

About the Speaker
Michael Rom is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish History and Culture at Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles. He received a PhD in History from Yale University and held a graduate fellowship at Center for Jewish History in 2017-18. He has held postdoctoral research fellowships at Harvard University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Cape Town. His first book, Brazilian Belonging: Jewish Politics in Cold War Latin America, is now available from Stanford University Press.