Under Dutch rule in northeastern Brazil, Jews of Portuguese origin established an openly practicing community in Recife. Kahal Zur Israel maintained worship, education, charitable activity, and rabbinic leadership within a colony contested by Dutch and Portuguese powers. Isaac Aboab da Fonseca served the congregation and later described hardships experienced during wartime siege. When Portuguese authority returned, public Jewish life became untenable and community members dispersed toward Amsterdam, the Caribbean, and North America. Recife’s brief organized community became a formative junction linking European Sephardim with the emerging Jewish geography of the Atlantic world.
