B'nai B'rith Latin America was founded in the early 20th Century as a regional division of B'nai B'rith International, a Jewish social service organization. [1] It has been active in Latin America throughout the 20th Century and to the present day. [2]
During the early 20th Century, B'nai B'rith lodges were established across Latin America. [2] In 1959, representatives from international B'nai B'rith divisions established a new organizational body known as the "B'nai B'rith International Committee" and included representatives from B'nai B'rith Latin America and was later instrumental in updating the international organization on antisemitism in Latin America and the state of military dictatorships. The Latin American division participated in displaying a 1966 international exhibition on the contributions of Sigmund Freud in the hopes of combatting prejudice. [3]
B'nai B'rith in Argentina began in Buenos Aires in 1930. By the 1960s, the organization had also established itself in the cities of Mendoza, San Lorenzo, and Córdoba. [2]
B'nai B'rith in Brazil was founded in 1932 and was temporarily banned by the country's Estado Novo dictatorship that lasted from 1937 to 1945 before resuming its activities. [4]
B'nai B'rith in Chile was established in 1937 [5] initially with the assistance of B'nai B'rith members in Argentina. [6]
B'nai B'rith in Cuba was founded in 1943. After the Cuban revolution, the organisation's activities were mostly curtailed although it was never formally disbanded. [7]
In Guatemala, the B'nai B'rith facilitated relief aid in the aftermath of the 1976 Guatemala earthquake. [3]
B'nai B'rith in Mexico was active since the early 20th Century and encouraged Jews in Eastern Europe to immigrate to Mexico. During the 1920s, it employed the scholar, Anita Brenner, as a correspondent to assist their efforts to protect immigrant Jewish girls from white slavery following reports of local abductions. [8] In the 1960s, B'nai B'rith began reporting on the prevalence of antisemitic literature in Mexico's bookstores to international B'nai B'rith divisions. [3]
B'nai B'rith in Panama was active since the early 20th Century and helped Jews arriving from Eastern Europe, Caribbean and the Middle East who emigrated to Panama. B'nai B'rith of Panama was one of the major Jewish organization to found the community's Consejo Central Comunitario Hebreo de Panama. Today runs the YOUTH LEADERSHIP PROGRAM, ANTI DEFAMATION COMMITTEE, STARS OF DAVID PROGRAM and the GOOD DEEDS DAY.
B'nai B'rith in Uruguay was founded in 1936, [3] and later reported to the international B'nai B'rith concerning the 1970s military regime. [3] The regional B'nai B'rith issued reports on the Uruguayan "death patrols" during the country's military regime, and the decline of Nicaragua's Jewish community. [3]
In 1966, B'nai B'rith of Venezuela was one of the five major Jewish organization to found the community's Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela (CAIV) [9] and became a supporter of adult Jewish education programs. [10]
B'nai B'rith International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Jewish service organization and was formerly a German Jewish cultural association. B'nai B'rith states that it is committed to the security and continuity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and combating antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.
BBYO is a Jewish teen movement, organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and headquartered in Washington, D.C. The organization is intended to build the identity of Jewish teens and offer leadership development programs.
The Rio Group (G-Rio) was a permanent association of political consultation of Latin America and Caribbean countries, created in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 18, 1986 with the purpose of creating a better political relationship among the countries. It was succeeded in 2011 by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
Latin Americans are the citizens of Latin American countries.
The history of the Jews in Latin America began with conversos who joined the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the continents. The Alhambra Decree of 1492 led to the mass conversion of Spain's Jews to Catholicism and the expulsion of those who refused to do so. However, the vast majority of conversos never made it to the New World and remained in Spain slowly assimilating to the dominant Catholic culture. This was due to the requirement by Spain's Blood Statutes to provide written documentation of Old Christian lineage to travel to the New World. However, the first Jews came with the first expedition of Christopher Columbus, including Rodrigo de Triana and Luis De Torres.
Jewish Cubans, Cuban Jews, or Cubans of Jewish heritage, have lived in the nation of Cuba for centuries. Some Cubans trace Jewish ancestry to Marranos who came as colonists, though few of these practice Judaism today. The majority of Cuban Jews are descended from European Jews who immigrated in the early 20th century. More than 24,000 Jews lived in Cuba in 1924, and still more immigrated to the country in the 1930s. Following the 1959 communist revolution, 94% of the country's Jews emigrated, most of them to the United States. In 2007 an estimated 1,500 known Jewish Cubans remained in the country, overwhelmingly located in Havana. Several hundred have since immigrated to Israel. Considered one of the most important Latin American Jewish sites, Beth Shalom Temple is the epicenter for current Jewish life in Cuba and still conducts weekly Shabbat services.
The Latin American and the Caribbean Economic System, officially known as Sistema Económico Latinoamericano y del Caribe (SELA), is an organization founded in 1975 to promote economic cooperation and social development between Latin American and the Caribbean countries. In the early 1990s, its representatives consisted of members from 28 countries and took part in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations, which led to a new global agreement on restrictions on trade and established the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The Christian Democrat Organization of America is an international organization made up of political parties, groups, and associations in North America and South America that promote the principles of Christian humanism. Affiliated with the Center Democratic International, it is a regional partner of the European People's Party and regional organizations of Christian Democratic parties in Asia and Africa.
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries.
The Culture of Latin America is the formal or informal expression of the people of Latin America and includes both high culture and popular culture, as well as religion and other customary practices. These are generally of Western origin, but have various degrees of Native American, African and Asian influence.
Bilateral relations between the various countries of Latin America and the United States of America have been multifaceted and complex, at times defined by strong regional cooperation and at others filled with economic and political tension and rivalry. Although relations between the U.S. government and most of Latin America were limited prior to the late 1800s, for most of the past century, the United States has unofficially regarded parts of Latin America as within its sphere of influence, and for much of the Cold War (1947–1991), vied with the Soviet Union. The political context evolved again in the 2000s, with the election in several South American countries of socialist governments. This "pink tide" thus saw the successive elections of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1998), Lula in Brazil (2002), Néstor Kirchner in Argentina (2003), Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay (2004), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2005), Michelle Bachelet in Chile (2006), Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (2006), Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2006), Fernando Lugo in Paraguay (2008), José Mujica in Uruguay (2009), Ollanta Humala in Peru (2011), Luis Guillermo Solís in Costa Rica (2014), Salvador Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador (2014), and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico (2018). Although these leaders vary in their policies and attitude towards both Washington, D.C. and neoliberalism, while the states they govern also have different agendas and long-term historic tendencies, which can lead to rivalry and open contempt between themselves, they seem to have agreed on refusing the ALCA and on following a regional integration without the United States' overseeing the process. In particular, Chávez and Morales seem more disposed to ally together, while Kirchner and Lula, who has been criticized by the left-wing in Brazil, including by the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) landless peasants movement, are seen as more centered. The state of Bolivia also has seen some friction with Brazil, as well as Chile. Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University, said in a May 2006 interview: "On one side, you have a number of administrations that are committed to moderate economic reform. On the other, you've had something of a backlash against the Washington Consensus [a set of liberal economic policies that Washington-based institutions urged Latin American countries to follow, including privatization, trade liberalization and fiscal discipline] and some emergence of populist leaders." In the same way, although a leader such as Chávez verbally attacked the George W. Bush administration as much as the latter attacked him, and claimed to be following a democratic socialist Bolivarian Revolution, the geo-political context has changed a lot since the 1970s. Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, thus stated: for influence in the Western Hemisphere.
The history of the Jews in Mexico began in 1519 with the arrival of Conversos, often called Marranos or "Crypto-Jews", referring to those Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism and that then became subject to the Spanish Inquisition.
Anita Brenner was a transnational Jewish scholar and intellectual, who wrote extensively in English about the art, culture, and history of Mexico. She was born in Mexico, and raised and educated in the United States. She returned to Mexico in the 1920s following the Mexican Revolution. She coined the term 'Mexican Renaissance', "to describe the cultural florescence [that] emerged from the revolution." As a child of immigrants, Brenner's heritage caused her to experience both antisemitism and acceptance. Fleeing discrimination in Texas, she found mentors and colleagues among the European Jewish diaspora living in both Mexico and New York, but Mexico, not the US or Europe, held her loyalty and enduring interest. She was part of the post-Revolutionary art movement known for its indigenista ideology.
Emigration from Uruguay is a migratory phenomenon that has been taking place in Uruguay since the early 20th century.
The Permanent Congress of Trade Union Unity of Latin America also known as the Congreso Permanente de Unidad Sindical de los Trabajadores de América Latina y el Caribe (CPUSTAL) is the Latin American regional organizations of the World Federation of Trade Unions.
The Italy–Latin America Conference or Italo–Latin America Conference, formally the Italy–Latin America and Caribbean Conference, is an inter-governmental forum for encounter between Italy and the countries of Latin America. A biennial summit is organised in Italy by the "Italo-Latin American Institute" located in Rome, with many initiatives marking the "preparatory path". The institute's aims are to develop and coordinate research and documentation regarding the problems, achievements and prospects of its Member Countries in cultural, scientific, economic, technical and social contexts. The conferences are an effective and well-established policy instrument in Italy’s relations with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The term Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is an English-language acronym referring to the Latin American and the Caribbean region. The term LAC covers an extensive region, extending from The Bahamas and Mexico to Argentina and Chile. The region has over 670,230,000 people as of 2016, and spanned for 21,951,000 square kilometres (8,475,000 sq mi).
B'nai B'rith in Cuba, is a regional division of B'nai B'rith, an international Jewish social service organization, that was founded in 1943.
B'nai B'rith in Europe, a regional division of B'nai B'rith, an international Jewish social service organization. The first B'nai B'rith lodge ever established outside of the United States was in Berlin in 1882. A central entity known as B'nai B'rith was established in 1999. Activities of the central B'nai B'rith Europe include co-organizing the European Day of Jewish Culture. The event was originally a 1996 initiative known as European Jewish Heritage Day and was launched by B'nai B'rith Europe in France.
B'nai B'rith Israel was founded in 1888 as a regional division of B'nai B'rith International, a Jewish social service organization. It has been active in the State of Israel throughout the 20th Century and to the present day.