First Brazilian Synagogue

While visiting the city center, we had the privilege of touring the first Jewish synagogue ever built in the Americas.  It was originally by Dutch Jews who had colonized Recife, but the synagogue was destroyed due to religious intolerance that swept Brazil in the form of a religious prohibition, making illegal all forms of worship besides Christianity.  Under the Dutch, Brazilians enjoyed religious freedom, but when Portugal took control, minorities like Jews and religions of African origin were persecuted.  The ruins were found by later Jews after the end of the prohibition, and were affirmed by a Rabbi that it had indeed been the site of a synagogue.  Today the synagogue is a museum to memorialize the first Jews in Brazil.

This is the room where religious meetings were held.  In the walls, like in Jerusalem, prayers and solicitations to God were written on scraps of paper and shoved into whatever crevice could be found.