AJC Leadership Delegation Visits Brazil

["Ari Gordon" <gordona@ajc.org>]

AJC Leadership Delegation Visits Brazil, Meets Foreign Minister and Other
Top Officials

March 16, 2011 -- Brasilia -- An AJC leadership delegation today concluded a
three-day visit to Brasilia and Sao Paulo. Earlier, the group traveled to
Santiago and Buenos Aires.

Among the highlights of the visit to Brazil was a 90-minute meeting with
Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota. The conversation focused on Brazil-U.S.
relations in anticipation of President Obama's much-anticipated visit to
Brazil this weekend; regional concerns; Iran's violation of human rights and
pursuit of nuclear-weapons capability; prospects for Israeli-Palestinian
peace; and the dramatic events currently unfolding in the Arab world. 

Earlier this year, Minister Patriota, previously Brazil's Ambassador to the
U.S., was appointed to his present position by President Dilma Roussef, who
was elected in October to succeed outgoing President Luis Inacio Lula da
Silva.

During the last year of the Lula administration, Brazil recognized a
Palestinian state within the 1967 lines and, together with Turkey, opposed a
UN Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran for its
nuclear activities. Both decisions were strongly opposed by the United
States and Israel. 

Other highlights of the visit included a reception for the AJC delegation
hosted by U.S. Ambassador Thomas Shannon and attended by numerous European
and Latin American ambassadors; a luncheon organized by Israeli Ambassador
Giora Brecher; and a meeting with Mayor Gilberto Kassab of Sao Paulo,
Brazil's largest city, and participation in the inauguration of an exhibit
on the Holocaust at City Hall.

Dr. Claudio Lottenberg, president of CONIB, Brazilian Jewry's umbrella body,
hosted a luncheon for the AJC group to discuss the current state of the
community and areas of potential cooperation with AJC.

The Jewish Federation of Sao Paulo, home to an estimated 60,000 Jews,
arranged a dinner with 100 young leaders, a number of whom will be attending
AJC's Global Forum and young leadership weekend in Washington next month.
The Federation also organized a reception with community leaders and
attended by the Consuls General of the United States and Israel.

Other meetings took place with Rubens Recupero, who has had a distinguished
career as Brazil's Ambassador to the U.S., Minister of Finance, and
Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and Jose
Serra, former Governor of the State of Sao Paulo and runner-up in last
year's presidential run-off.

"In today's world, Brazil is rapidly becoming a regional and global
powerhouse," said AJC Executive Director David Harris, who led the 19-person
delegation from seven U.S. cities and Panama. "As the largest country in
Latin America, a stable democracy and pluralistic society, and one of the
strongest economies in the world, Brazil is very much on the move. And as a
member of the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council, among other key
bodies, it wields considerable diplomatic influence. Moreover, its  Jewish
community, numbering well over 100,000, is dynamic, diverse, and impressive.
For every imaginable reason, at AJC we attach the highest priority, working
with our friends in the Brazilian Jewish community, to engaging Brazil's
government and society."

The visit to South America was coordinated by Dina Siegel Vann, the
Mexican-born Director of AJC's Institute of Latino and Latin American
Affairs, with the help of Associate Director Stephanie Guiloff, originally
from Chile.

The institute draws on AJC's long engagement with Latin America, dating to
the 1940s when the organization established its first office in the region.

>Ari M. Gordon
>Special Advisor 
>Interreligious and Intergroup Relations
>American Jewish Committee
>165 E56th Street
>New York, NY 10022
>(212) 891-6717