Country's First Female Rabbi at Synagogue in Rio de Janeiro

February 11, 2004

Source: JTA

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13764&intcategoryid=5

On February 11, 2004 JTA reported, "When Sandra Kochmann took the post of assistant rabbi at Rio de Janeiro’s largest synagogue, becoming the first female rabbi in Brazil, many Brazilian Jews dismissed her derisively as a 'Paraguayan.' In Brazil, 'Paraguayan' is commonly used to mean 'fake' due to the prodigious amount of smuggled goods, many of them knock-offs, that cross the border from Paraguay into Brazil. Kochmann readily admits she’s Paraguayan — she even keeps the flag of her home country’s soccer team on her desk — but there’s no mistaking that she’s for real. 'I am opening doors,' she says in an interview with JTA, speaking in Spanish-accented Portugese...Women long have struggled to achieve equality at ARI. It has been a gradual process, with women first granted the right to read the Haftarah and eventually being allowed to chant the Torah portion and lead services, Kuperman said. Today, women Torah readers and cantors are common at the synagogue. But change has not always been easy for congregants."