It’s not New York, Cincinnati or Philadelphia. The oldest and first Jewish community in the Americas was established in Brazil, where Sephardic Jews founded the first synagogue in Recife in 1636. This is the fascinating story of the Jews of Brazil.
Portuguese Discovery 1492 - 1624
Following a century of successful discovery and colonization, the Portuguese monarchy told Pedro Alvares Cabral in the year 1500 to take his ships as far west as he could to see if he could find an alternate route to India. Accompanying Cabral on this trip as the interpreter was a Jew, Gaspar da Gama.
Gaspar was “discovered” by famed explorer Vasco da Gama in India, where Vasco da Gama was shocked to find a white man serving as an advisor to one of the local rulers. VascoDa Gama decided that he could use someone who spoke the Eastern languages, so he decided to take this man back with him to Lisbon. He had the Jew convert to Catholicism and adopt the name of Gaspar da Gama in deference to the explorer.
Famed explorer Vasco da Gama
When Cabral traveled to the West, he thought it would be helpful to have Gaspar with him to converse with the natives. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, they arrived at the land that would eventually be known as Brazil. The first man to set foot on this new land was Gaspar. Unfortunately, his knowledge of Indian dialects was of no value in trying to talk to the Brazilians, and it was then that the Portuguese settlement in Brazil began.
