The renowned Institute of the Arab World in Paris has included the work of a Brazilian researcher in its exhibition “Juifs d’Orient” (Jews of the East, in French). The exhibition, which runs until March 13, deals with the Jewish populations of the Arab world – a very rich history, usually ignored. The collection starts from the first contacts between Jews and Muslims, with the emergence of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, and goes through the intellectual production of the medieval caliphates of Baghdad and Cordoba. Previously, the institute had also dedicated exhibitions to Muslims and Christians.
As reported by RFI, one of the last panels of the show was produced by the Brazilian João Luis Koifman. Based on interviews and images, Koifman narrates the story of the Wadi Abu Jamil neighborhood in Beirut, notable for its Jewish population – today, after decades of migration, almost nil. The panel is the result of his graduation work in architecture and urbanism at Universidade Federal Fluminense. “The vast majority of Lebanese Jews have a very strong nostalgia, a feeling of belonging to the country, to the neighborhood, to the block, very strong. This memory is alive in their heads,” he told RFI.
As I tell you in my book “Brimos”, Brazil is home to the largest Arab diaspora in the world. Syrians and Lebanese in particular began to migrate to the country in the late 19th century, amid the economic and social crises of the Ottoman Empire. Most of them were Christians, but there were also waves of Jews and Muslims. In the 1950s, a new wave brought Jews from Egypt, fleeing the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser – I recently interviewed some of them for an oral history project at the Canadian organization Egypt Migrations.
