The University of Haifa, the Brazil-Israel Institute and the Interdisciplinary Center of Jewish Studies (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – NIEJ)

International Conference on

Politics and Religion in Brazil and the Americas: Evangelical churches and their relations with Judaism, Zionism, Israel and the Jewish communities 

13-15 January 2020 

University of Haifa, Eshkol Tower, Ofer Observatory, 30th Floor

DAY I (Monday, 13 January)

14:15-14:30 Registration

14:30-15:30 Panel I – Opening Panel 

Chair: Dr. Marcos Silber, University of Haifa, Israel 

Greeting:

Prof. Gustavo Mesch, Rector of the University of Haifa

Dr. Michel Gherman, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – NIEJ

Rafael Kruchin, The Brazil-Israel Institute (São Paulo)

Keynote:  

Prof. Paul Freston, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada 

The Expansion of Christian Zionism in Latin America and Africa 

15:30 -16:00 Coffee break

16:00-18:30 Panel II – The Evangelistic Church’s. Introduction view 

Chair and Commentator: Prof. Amos Megged, University of Haifa, Israel  

Prof. Virginia Garrard, University of Texas at Austin, USA  

Christian Zionism and the “Hebraic Turn” in Latin American Pentecostalism

Prof. James K. Wellman, Jr., University of Washington, USA   

Sacrificing for the Sacred Center: What Christian Zionists Will Give up for Zion 

Prof. David Lehmann, University of Cambridge (Emeritus), UK

In thrall to text: a Brazilian marriage of fundamentalism and hybridity

Dr. Yael Mabat, Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University, Israel 

Keeping the Sabbath, Reading the Bible and Becoming a “True” Christian: The Seventh- day Adventist Indias and the Catholic Church, Puno, Peru, 1900-1930

DAY II (Tuesday, 14 January)

9:00-11:15 Panel III – Evangelist movements in the World  

Chair and Commentator: Dr. Batia Siebzehner, Truman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Vanessa Rau, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany 

Object of desire or protestant redemption? Philo-Semitism, transgenerational guilt and the politics of desire among non-Jewish Germans in contemporary Berlin

Dr. Veronique Altglas, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland   

Religious Exoticism and allo-semitism in a Messianic congregation (Northern Ireland) 

Dr. Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil  

Mozambique. Discreet and delicate: a synagogue in the midst of wars 

Prof. Miriam Billig and Dr. Gideon Elazar, Bar Ilan University and Ariel University, Israel    

Back to Earth: Christian Zionism and Sacred Space in Samaria  

11:15 -11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:30 Panel IV – Brazil Israel USA – International Relations 

Chair and Commentator: Prof. Zohar Zeguev, University of Haifa, Israel 

Prof. Eran Shalev, University of Haifa, Israel  

The Old and New Israel: The Cultural Origins of the United States-Israel Relationship

Dr. Glen Segell, University of Haifa, Israel  

Why Brazil is supporting Israel in United Nations Votes?

Dr. Joseph A Edelheit, Divinity School of the University of Chicago, USA   

Honesty is More Important than Support for Israel: The Politics of Denial in the Americas and   ‘Messianic” Jews among Evangelical Christian Zionists

13:30 -14:30 Lunch

14:30-17:00 Panel V – The Evangelist church at Brazil. General view.  

Chair and Commentator: Sebastian Klor, University of Haifa, Israel

Henrique Vieira, Priest and Social Scientist

Use of the memory of Israel in the context of a Brazilian evangelical extremism

Dr. Christian Dunker, University of São Paulo – USP, Brazil   

Theology of Prosperity and Social Protective Narratives in the Raising of Evangelic Churches in Brazilian Contemporary Context

Dr. Guilherme Casarões, Fundação Getúlio Vargas/São Paulo School of Business, Brazil   

The domestic roots of the Jerusalem embassy move: Christians and Zionists in Brazil and Paraguay 

17:00 -17:30 Coffee break

17:30-19:00 Panel VI – The Evangelical Church in Brazil. Particular view I

Chair and Commentator: Mariusz Kałczewiak, University of Potsdam, Germany

Dr. Manoela Carpenedo, University of Kent, UK  

Exploring post-modern fundamentalism in the 2018 election among the ‘Judaizing Evangelicals’ in Brazil

Thayane Fernandes, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil  

Under divine “double honor”: Ethnography of a “Jewish-Pentecostal: church in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil 

 Dr. Rodrigo Toniol, Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil

Salomon’s Temple: aesthetic transformations on the Brazilian pentecostalism 

DAY III (Wendnesday, 15 January)

8:30-10:30 Panel VII – The Evangelical Church in Brazil. Particular view II

Chair and Commentator: Nahuel Ribke, Seminar Kibbutzim College, Israel

Dr. Franco Iacomini, Unicentro, Universidade Estadual do Centro-oeste do Paraná, Brazil 

The Israel of God in Brazil: how dispensationalist theology, messianic myths and imagined communities engendered the political use of Jewish symbols by Brazilian right-wing

Dr. Ronaldo Almeida, Dr. Ronaldo Almeida, Brazil

Bolsonaro’s religion: between the Christian majority and the Jewish-Christian tradition 

Leonel Caraciki, Ben-Gurion University, Israel  

A new Replacement Theology? Christian Zionism as a Destabilizing Factor in Israel-Diaspora Relations 

10:30 -11:00 Coffee break

11:00 – 13:00   Panel VIII – National and International Politics of Brazil 

Chair and Commentator: Rafael Kruchin, The Brazil-Israel Institute, São Paulo, Brazil

Dr. Deborah Hornblas Travassos, University of São Paulo (USP) 

The rise of the new Brazilian right: the relationship between the election of Jair Bolsonaro and the appropriation of Jewish and Israeli symbols by neopentecostal churches

 Jean Wyllys, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

Manipulate my fear- How new forms of (mis) information and processes of political and religious subjection contribute to the erosion of democracy in Brazil 

Dr. Michel Gherman, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Ben Gurion University, Israel  

Brazilian New Left, Brazilian New White and the Imaginary Israel 

13:00 – 13:45   Panel IX – And now what? Conclusion  

Chair: Dr. Marcos Silber, University of Haifa, Israel 

Dr. Michel Gherman, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – NIEJ

Dr. Paul Freston, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada 

Rafael Kruchin, The Brazil-Israel Institute (São Paulo)

Final words: Aiala Wengrowicz Feller, University of Haifa, Israel