The Lost Jews of the Amazon

In a glass case at São Paulo’s Jewish Museum sits a Torah scroll that has traveled farther than most people ever will. Written in 16th-century Spain, smuggled to Morocco during the Inquisition, and carried deep into the Brazilian Amazon by Jewish refugees, this 400-year-old parchment tells one of the most extraordinary migration stories in Jewish history—and one that remained largely hidden until now.

The scroll belongs to a community that transformed one of the world’s most challenging environments into what they called “Eretz Amazon“—their promised land in the rainforest. For over two centuries, the sound of Hebrew prayers echoed through the Amazon wilderness, mixing with the calls of toucans and the splash of pink dolphins. Jewish families from Morocco traveled deeper into the world’s largest rainforest than any European settlers before them, creating a hidden civilization where matzah was made from tapioca and synagogues floated on rivers.

Worshippers continue to pray in Sha’ar Hashamayim, the first synagogue built in Belém (Amazon) in the 1820s.

This is the story of one of the most remarkable Jewish communities in history: the Jews of the Amazon.

From Moroccan Mellahs to Amazonian Rivers

In the 1800s, life in Morocco’s mellahs—walled Jewish quarters—meant cramped conditions, heavy taxes, and the constant burden of second-class status. But in 1824, Brazil’s new constitution offered something rare: religious tolerance. Though Catholicism remained the official faith, Jews were free to practice privately—unthinkable under Portugal’s earlier colonial rule. Combined with Brazil’s open ports and booming trade, the Amazon began to seem like a land of promise.

For Moroccan Jews, the Amazon was a chance to live with dignity, faith, and freedom for the first time in generations.

The first Jewish families—the Acris, Benjó, and Sabbá—arrived in Belém by 1810. As the rubber boom surged between 1850 and 1910, hundreds more followed. Nearly 900 Jewish families made Belém their home, while thousands more ventured deep into the rainforest as regatões—river traders supplying remote rubber outposts. Their boats bore names like Rei Davi (King David) and Princesa de Tânger, reminders of where they came from—and what they hoped to build.

A portrait of a Jewish family from Manaus, once known as Paris of the Amazon.

For Moroccan Jews, the Amazon wasn’t just a frontier. It was a chance to live with dignity, faith, and freedom for the first time in generations.

A Judaism That Floated

What made this community extraordinary wasn’t just their commercial success, but how they maintained Jewish identity while becoming thoroughly Amazonian. They developed what locals called “Caboclo Judaism”—a unique blend of Sephardic tradition and rainforest adaptation that would astonish rabbis from other continents.

When matzah was unavailable for Passover, they used tapioca flour. Sabbath stews were reimagined with local fish and forest fruits. Instead of shrimp, they crafted a kosher version of tacacá—a traditional Amazonian soup—by substituting fish, preserving both flavor and faith. In remote areas where forming a minyan was impossible, Jewish life continued with quiet devotion—families prayed alone or in small groups, maintaining traditions as best they could.

Amazonian-style dafina: A traditional Moroccan Jewish Sabbath stew reimagined with rainforest ingredients.

The community preserved Hakitia, their distinctive dialect mixing medieval Spanish, liturgical Hebrew, and Moroccan Arabic. Families still use expressions like “Que vas hacer en Brasil, mi hijo? Non beberás caldo, comerás harina e dormirás colgado!” (What are you going to do in Brazil, my son? You will not drink chicken soup, but eat flour and sleep in a hammock!)—complaints their mothers made about leaving Morocco that became cherished community folklore.

On major holidays, some traveled hundreds of miles by boat to reach synagogues in Belém or Manaus—arduous journeys that could take weeks along winding rivers. The stories they left behind border on the miraculous. In Cametá, a violent storm once washed away the local synagogue, but the community’s Torah scroll was found unharmed, floating downriver. It was rescued by a local ribeirinho, whose family, according to legend, prospered from that day forward.

The Rabbi in the Rainforest

In 1908, Rabbi Shalom Emanuel Muyal was sent from Morocco to the Amazon to help scattered Jewish communities maintain religious life. For two years, he traveled tirelessly between settlements, offering guidance in Jewish law, training ritual leaders, and rekindling a sense of connection for Jews who had gone years without a rabbi.

Jacob Azulay, a Moroccan immigrant from Casablanca and longtime spiritual leader in Manaus, lights the Hanukkah menorah with his brothers Moisés and Elias.

When he died of yellow fever in 1910, stories spread of people visiting his grave and experiencing healing. Locals began to view him as a spiritual figure of blessing, and his resting place quietly became a site of popular reverence—one of the more unusual intersections of Jewish presence and Amazonian faith.

The burial site of Rabbi Shalom Emanuel Muyal in Manaus

The Promised Rainforest

When the rubber boom ended around 1910, many families migrated to Brazil’s southeast, but the Amazon had changed them permanently. Today, roughly 850 Jews remain in Manaus, with smaller communities scattered throughout the Amazon basin. More than 20 Jewish cemeteries have been documented deep in the rainforest—evidence of structured communities that once thrived along the Amazon’s major tributaries.

The Torah scroll at São Paulo’s Jewish Museum represents more than historical curiosity; it embodies a living bridge between persecution and sanctuary, between ancient tradition and radical adaptation. It reminds us that Jewish history isn’t just about survival in familiar places, but about the courage to recreate our traditions in the most unexpected corners of the world.

An Enduring Legacy

In an age of climate change and cultural displacement, the Amazon Jews offer profound lessons about adaptation and resilience. From rubber traders to modern entrepreneurs, from floating synagogues to urban communities, they have reinvented themselves countless times while never losing their core identity.

The Eshel Abraham Synagogue in Belem, a historic synagogue built for the Sephardic Jewish community who immigrated to Brazil in the 1820s.

Today’s generation faces new challenges—climate change, urbanization, globalization—but they approach them with the same spirit their ancestors brought to the rainforest: not as obstacles to overcome, but as opportunities to discover new ways of being Jewish in an ever-changing world.

The Amazon Jews demonstrate that authentic Jewish communities aren’t always found in the most traditional places. Sometimes they emerge where Hebrew prayers mix with the sounds of the rainforest and where ancient wisdom responds to new realities.

Photo credit (used with permission): Portal Amazônia Judaica

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