Antisemitic Incidents in Brazil Shot Up 149% Since 2022, New Figures Show

Brazil has experienced a major surge in antisemitism following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to newly unveiled research.

The Israelite Confederation of Brazil (CONIB), the country’s main Jewish umbrella organization, on Monday released its annual report on antisemitism for 2025.

StandWithUs Brazil, the Holocaust Memorial of São Paulo, ECOA, and the Holocaust Museum of Curitiba all contributed to the report, which CONIB described as “the most comprehensive ever produced in the country.”

Analysts found 989 antisemitic incidents were registered in the country in 2025, representing a 149 percent explosion from the 397 documented acts of bigotry against Jews in 2022.

Brazil is currently home to an estimated 120,000 Jews, the second largest population in Latin America behind Argentina.

CONIB President Claudio Lottenberg introduced the report by sharing wisdom from his mother-in-law Esther Sztamfater, a Holocaust survivor.

“Esther survived the war as a refugee in the Polish forests for three years. Three years in hiding. Cold, hungry, afraid — and with a lucidity about human nature that I have never seen in any other human being,” Lottenberg said. “Over 25 years, we had hundreds of conversations. Sometimes long. Sometimes just a sentence. But always with the same underlying lesson: The horror doesn’t begin in the gas chambers. It begins before. It begins with the tolerated word, the repeated lie, the stigma that no one questions. And that’s why this report matters.”

Warning that the numbers in the report represent “a snapshot of an environment that’s forming,” Lottenberg described the developing picture as “one that Esther would recognize.” He said that “antisemitism, as Esther taught me, doesn’t announce its arrival. It settles in gradually. In the tolerance of lies. In the indulgence towards aggression. In the silent acceptance of intimidation. And when a minority needs to get used to fear to preserve its community life, the problem is no longer the minority’s. It is democracy’s. It is Brazil’s.”

CONIB’s Secretary Rony Vainzof added that “antisemitism in Brazil has not receded; it has become normalized. Unfortunately, this is the new normal.”

CONIB’s legal director Andrea Vainer emphasized that antisemitism in Brazil “constitutes a crime of racism. And the law that protects us in this regard is Law 7716 of 1989.” He added that Brazil “has a whole constitutional framework to punish racism in general.”

Under Law 7716, those convicted of racial discrimination in hiring can face prison sentences of as much as five years. Individuals who incite racism or other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry face a maximum of three years. However, Brazilians who choose to use mass media in promoting their hateful feelings could spend five years in jail and face a fine.

The report showed that antisemitic incidents peaked last year in June with 138 cases reported. The Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul accounted for 40 percent of all outrages.

In looking at social media-related complaints, researchers found Instagram came in worst with 37.13 percent of online reports. In a survey of Jews conducted for the report, 81.5 percent of respondents named online hate speech as the threat that most worried them for the future.

The survey also showed that 46 percent of Jews had experienced antisemitism in their professional lives and 39.84 percent had concealed or considered concealing their Jewish identity for fear of moral or physical aggression.

Twenty-five percent of Jews surveyed said they experienced antisemitism in the workplace. A minority of Jews said they reported antisemitic incidents they witnessed, with only 32.58 percent saying they informed a Jewish organization or safety group.

The report also found gaps in Holocaust education in Brazil, with a general survey finding only 53 percent able to correctly define the Holocaust and 87.3 percent saying they have never participated in any Holocaust educational activities, including those in school.

Rising antisemitism came amid growing tensions between Israel and Brazil.

In August, Israel announced it was downgrading diplomatic relations with Brazil after Brasília rejected its proposed ambassador.

“[Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] has now revealed himself as an outspoken antisemite and Hamas supporter by pulling Brazil out of the IHRA, the international body established to fight antisemitism and hatred toward Israel, aligning the country with regimes such as Iran, which openly denies the Holocaust and threatens the existence of the Jewish state,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel posted on social media at the time.

Months earlier, Lula accused the Jewish state of committing genocide and intentionally targeting women and children during its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

CONIB denounced Lula for his claims, accusing him of promoting an “antisemitic libel.”

Lula previously compared Israel to Nazi Germany and the war in Gaza to the Holocaust — a comparison described as an example of anti-Jewish hate under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

In May 2024, Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador from Israel.

In a panel discussion on Monday following the opening remarks presenting the report on antisemitism, CONIB’s Volunteer Director Paula Puppi discouraged people from feeling like they needed to argue on social media, stating that the platforms failed to foster healthy discussions.

“It’s a shallow, polarized environment where there’s no room for debate. And it’s not possible to be profound in a shallow environment,” Puppi said. “And that’s a mistake we make when we try to debate in that environment.”

Puppi urged attendees that “we need to learn how to deal with this environment. And that’s why this monitoring work that CONIB has been doing is so important.”