The growth of the Jewish communities in Canada and Brazil is the aggregate of three factors: 1) natural growth (births vs. deaths), 2) migration (immigration and return migration vs. emigration), and 3) identification (conversion and return to the fold vs. assimilation). The Jewish communities have various strategies for maintaining their populations and encouraging growth.
Regarding natural growth, the Jewish communities of Canada and Brazil have limited tools to increase birth rates or to lower death rates. With the exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jewish community leaders are hesitant to enter into the privacy of family reproductive decisions and to encourage higher birth rates. Some strategies, however, encourage Jewish singles to meet up and start to build Jewish families (and possibly larger ones) earlier in their lives. Another strategy has been to assure families that they will receive community support for the Jewish education of their children. Regarding lowering of death rates, the Jewish communities through the development of Jewish hospitals, homes for the aged, social services, and
charities have enhanced medical and social conditions. This has resulted in better quality of life and greater longevity.
Migration plays an important factor in the growth of Canada’s Jewish community and its components. It is a country with political and economic stability. Furthermore, linguistically Canada is an easier country to migrate to than Brazil. English or French is the first language of over 80 percent of Jews in the Diaspora and prevalent second languages for Jews in non-English-speaking and non-French speaking countries. The strategy of Canada’s Jewish communities, particularly those which have experienced declining populations such as Winnipeg and Montreal, has been to encourage and facilitate inter-Diasporic migration. The communities have approached Jewish populations in countries where the general economic and/or political conditions have made life for Jews more difficult – the former Soviet Union, Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil. They also encourage and facilitate Jews under threat of anti-Semitism – such as France, Russia, and the Ukraine – to move to Canada. Furthermore, there is a significant migration of Israeli Jews to Canada. This population movement is not promoted but those who reach Canada receive community support like Jewish immigrants from other countries.
For Brazil, it is more difficult to encourage migration of Jews from other countries to strengthen its ranks. Political and economic conditions7 as well as linguistic barriers inhibit inter-Diasporic migration to Brazil. Portuguese is a language spoken by very few Jews outside Brazil (some 500 in Portugal). The recent economic crisis in Argentina (1999 to 2002) led to the movement of some Argentine Jews to Brazil due to its
7 “Brazil’s growth performance has been erratic in recent years but the foundations for a sustained recovery appear to be broadly in place. The measures implemented by the new administration, which took office in January 2003, have contributed to gradually restoring confidence, which had faltered during and in the aftermath of the presidential election in 2002. These measures have succeeded in stabilizing foreign exchange markets, reducing sovereign credit risk, and taming inflation. At the same time, the remarkable external adjustment since the floating of the real in 1999, with continued strong export performance and the ensuing turnaround in the external current account, is making the economy less dependent on foreign financing and, consequently, more resilient to changes in market sentiment.” Economic Survey of Brazil 2005, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, www.oecd.org.
geographic proximity. However, there has not been any large-scale Jewish migration to Brazil since the 1950s.
Emigration has the potential of weakening the Jewish community numerically and its philanthropic financial base.
The Jewish communities in Brazil and Canada have made efforts to slow out-migration through fostering a stronger sense of community and Jewish identity (Lesser, 2001, p. 65-73).
The issue of Jewish identification is an area which the spectrum of the Jewish organizations has invested significant resources under the banner of “Jewish continuity”. The loss of Jewish identity or assimilation could lead to the waning of the Jewish population unless concerted efforts are made to decelerate the rate of decline. On the other hand, Judaism allows in-conversion, but does not encourage it. There is no active proselytizing of non-Jews with the exception of those who have Jewish roots. Shavei Israel, founded in 2004, reaches out to “lost Jews” and assists them in coming to terms with their heritage and identity in a spirit of tolerance and understanding.
The activities of Shavei Israel focus on descendants of Anousim, descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel (such as the Bnei Menashe of India), and descendants of assimilated Jews, who wish to rekindle their connection to Judaism and the Jewish people.
Jewish communities have used identification with the Holocaust and the support of Israel to strengthen Jewish identity. The March of the Living (Marcha Da Vida) is an educational program that brings Jewish teens (from Canada, Brazil and other countries) to Poland on Holocaust Memorial Day, where they march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, and then to Israel where they observe Israel Memorial Day and Israel Independence Day. Its goal is for these young people to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and to lead the Jewish people into the future vowing “Never Again.” Taglit-Birthright Israel provides the gift of first time, peer group, educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26 from around the world. Taglit-Birthright Israel's founders created this program to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of
solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants' personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.
Both the Canadian and Brazilian Jewish communities are facing similar demographic problems regarding their natural increase and rate of identification despite the differences between the respective host societies. The pivotal element for the growth or decline of these Jewries is migration. For Canada, continued immigration of Jews from other Diaspora communities as well as Israel, offsets the declining natural growth rate and assimilation. Canada is an attractive destination for migration. Specific communities with declining and ageing populations (e.g. Winnipeg and Montreal) increased their efforts to attract Jewish immigrants. Migration should transform the Canadian Jewish population structure by adding to younger population cohorts. Continued investment in the community and Jewish education will foster stronger identification and slow down the rate of assimilation.
For Brazil with a declining natural growth rate, out-migration, and high rates of assimilation, immigration and/or return migration are not viable options to booster its declining numbers. To preserve or enlarge its population, Brazilian Jewry has seen the need to invest inwardly through Jewish education and community development to strengthen Jewish identification and to encourage larger families. Efforts to return Anousim (Conversos, or "New Christians"), and descendants of other Jews (e.g. Moroccan Jews in the Amazons) can only slightly offset the high assimilation rate in Brazil.
In summation, the prospect for Canadian Jewry is a slow population increase as long as it is able to continue to attract Jewish immigrants from other Diaspora communities and Israel.
Unable to attract new immigrants and with continued emigration, the prognosis for Brazil’s Jewish community is not a bright one – a slow but steady population decline.
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