Brasília – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gained pop star status among Brazilians during a five-day visit to their country to attend the inauguration of the new president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Brazil’s most influential primetime newscasts, Jornal Nacional and Fantastico, dedicated several minutes to coverage of the first sitting Israeli prime minister to visit Brazil.
The warm feelings between Israel’s right-wing prime minister and Brazil’s most right-wing president in three decades played out in public events and on social media. They contrasted with the previous 16 years of tension between the two countries’ under Brazil’s left-wing regimes.
“This visit is unique, historical, a turnover in the relationship between Israel and Brazil. It’s a great start of year 2019,” Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, Yossi Shelley, told JTA.
“Bibi crowns Bolsonaro’s once-in-a-lifetime moment,” Israel’s honorary consul, Osias Wurman, told JTA to explain Netanyahu’s unexpected popularity.
This city was the starting point for Netanyahu along with his wife, Sara, and their son, Yair. After landing, the prime minister headed straight to the Copacabana fort, where he was surprised to be awarded the National Order of the Southern Cross, Brazil’s highest national honor for high-ranking guests, by Bolsonaro.
“We will be starting a difficult government from January. In order to overcome the obstacles, we’ll need good allies, good friends, good brothers. Like Benjamin Netanyahu,” Bolsonaro said about the only foreign leader he met prior to being sworn in.
Bolsonaro also joined Netanyahu at a Dec. 28 ceremony at the Kehilat Yaacov synagogue in the heart of Copacabana, Rio’s most heavily Jewish neighborhood. Some 500 members of the 30,000-strong Jewish community there attended the ceremony at the Orthodox synagogue, shouting “mito” (Portuguese for myth or legend) at Bolsonaro, and Netanyahu’s nickname, “Bibi.”
“We can’t understand that we had to wait over 70 years for an Israeli prime minister to visit Brazil,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew, calling Bolsonaro “yedidi,” my friend, and “mitos.” “It’s not just friendship, not a pact of interest, it’s also a pact of brothers.”
Bolsonaro said: “It is with great honor that today I meet the man that is to me an example of patriotism, austerity and work for his people. I have always mentioned Israel as an example. Look what they don’t have and see what they are. Look at Brazil, look what we have and see what we don’t have. We’ll be more than just good partners, we’ll be brothers.”
Back at their hotel, the Netanyahus held a private Friday evening Shabbat ceremony, where Freddy Glatt, the 90-year-old president of the Brazilian Association of Holocaust Survivors in Rio, offered the kiddush blessing over the wine.
“His visit is very positive to show Brazilians the good things about Israel,” Glatt told JTA. “Despite the leftist people who are usually harsh on him, he is very nice and surprisingly behaved with simplicity.”