São Paulo – The public library in the Palestinian city of Beitunia earlier this week launched a section for books from Brazil following a donation of approximately 200 books by the Representative Office or Brazil in Ramallah. The handover is part of a project to bring the Brazilian Portuguese language and culture closer to the Brazilian Palestinian community that lives in the country. Other two cities, Al Bireh and Mazra’a Al Sharqia, which have Brazilian colonies, will soon receive books.
Ambassador Alessandro Candeas, the head of the Office, says that part of the books donated to Beitunia are textbooks of Brazilian Portuguese, History, Geography, Brazilian Literature and Culture, and come from surpluses of Brazil’s National Education Development Fund (FNDE) at the Ministry of Education. Others come from Brazilian institutions and range from comic books to children’s books, Brazilian literature, cookbooks, and magazines.
Candeas said the books are for every kind of reader, but most of them are focused on children. The ambassador on Monday, May, 31, participated in the opening of the space where the books will be store together with Beitunia mayor Ribhi Doleh. “It’s a little corner of Brazil in the Public Library of Betunia,” he says. The city is home to 500 Brazilian Palestinians.
Behind the donations, there is an ambitious project to bring back a connection with Brazil for Brazilians living in Palestine. Many Palestinians migrated to Brazil in difficult periods in the region’s history and some of them together with their descendants went back to the Arab country, thus creating an important local community. Most children of these people lost their connection with the Brazilian culture.
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Candeas said there has been two waves of immigration from Palestine to Brazil. One of them consisted of Christians during the Ottoman Empire. Most got established in cities in the Northeast such as Recife, Natal, and Fortaleza. The 50’s and 60’s saw a second wave of immigration of Palestinians to Brazil due to the conflict with Israel. These immigrants, mostly Muslims, moved to the South of Brazil, and some went to the Center-West.
Candeas says that the returnees from this second wave and their descendants compose almost the entirety of Brazilians who currently lives in Palestine. “They are Brazilians or children of Palestinian parents that were born in Brazil, who came back, continued to maintain relations with Brazil, speak Portuguese,” Candeas says. Most children of these people, tough, don’t speak Portuguese or have any relations with Brazil.
“That’s where we at the Brazilian Office in Palestine come in to bring back the Brazilianness of these kids,” the diplomat says. The plan is setting up a framework to support the teaching of Brazilian Portuguese, first by training volunteers to teach the language and then training professional teachers. The library books will be part of this effort.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
