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Art / Culture in South America

  • Design of Sao Paulo Jewish Museum chosen as best project in Brazil

    BRAZIL, 2016/11/02 The design of the building that will home the next Sao Paulo Jewish Museum, which is currently under construction, has been chosen as the best project part 1,200 contenders for the annual Great Award of Corporate Architecture in Brazil. Designed by architects Simoni D. Saidon and Mauro Martins, from Botti Rubin’s office, the museum won in the category Convention Center, Cultural Center and Museum, the WebJudaica news portal reported last week.
  • Long isolated, Africa’s Jewish ‘islands’ bridged by photographer’s lens

    JAPAN, 2016/07/25 The synagogues of emerging Jewish communities in Africa are often modest affairs at the end of bumpy dirt roads, communities which feel a historical or spiritual connection to Judaism, but are struggling to practice fully in their isolated conclaves. Judaism has always had a presence in North Africa, and later, in South Africa. But among this vast continent, dozens of new Jewish communities are beginning to reach out to the wider Jewish world. Some, like Ghana, believe they are historical descendants of Jewish traders in the Sahara. Others, in Uganda and Kenya, have felt a spiritual pull to Judaism. Photographer Jono David, 50, has attempted to capture intimate moments of small, emerging Jewish communities across Africa in 30 different nations and territories. An exhibition of some of those photos, The Children of Abraham and Sarah, is presently featured at Beit HaTfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People, through December. It is part of an installation that as well includes Nina Pereg’s two videos, filmed at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, showing preparations to flip the holy site from a mosque to a synagogue and vice versa, during the two days each year at the same time as the whole complex is open to either Jews or Muslims.
  • Oscar Niemeyer

    BRAZIL, 2013/01/02 Niemeyer had been battling kidney ailments and pneumonia for nearly a month in a Rio de Janeiro hospital. His death was confirmed by a hospital spokesperson. Starting in the 1930s, Niemeyer's career spanned nine decades. His distinctive glass and white-concrete buildings include such landmarks as the United Nations Secretariat in New York, the Communist Party headquarters in Paris and the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Brasilia.