Pentecostal Culture and Imaginaries about Jews and Israel in Favelas: The Case of Complexo de Israel (Rio de Janeiro)

In this article, I aim to continue reflecting on the flourishing of Pentecostal culture in Brazil by exploring how this phenomenon directly influences the use of images and vocabulary associated with Judaism and the State of Israel. Without disregarding the rise of global right-wing and far-right movements and the particular valorisation their most emblematic actors show towards the State of Israel, garnering significant media attention, I seek to understand the reasons behind this appreciation that publicly emerged less than a decade ago. These reasons are linked to the growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America and Brazil, particularly from its outlying ghettos. Based on long-term fieldwork involving interviews and image documentation since the 1990s, I propose analytical keys that consider the conjunction of racial, religious, ontological/security issues and issues related to violent crime as situationally significant for the emergence of imaginaries about Israel and the Jews, and the rhetoric of loss in Brazilian ghettos, with special attention to the social dynamics in Rio de Janeiro.