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Weird story about Carnivale floats. CK, do we have the funds to send Muffti on an investigative journalism mission? From Jpost:


A judge issued an order Thursday prohibiting a Rio samba group from parading during carnival with a float depicting naked bodies of Holocaust victims.

Judge Juliana Kalichszteim issued the injunction in response to a lawsuit by the Jewish Federation of Rio de Janeiro, which asked for the float be removed from this city’s famed carnival parade next week, said Lara Voges, a spokeswoman for the judge.

The judge said the float could be used in the parade, but that organizers of the Viradouro samba group must remove mannequins meant to represent dead bodies from the Holocaust.

Viraduro spokeswoman Eliane Lorca said the group had not yet seen the judge’s order and that the president of the group would only comment after they had seen the “supposed decision.”

The Jewish Federation praised the judge’s decision.

“It’s inadmissible that they could have a parade float depicting dead Jews and a live Hitler on top of them,” said federation spokesman Jose Roitberg.

Reports in the media have said that Viradouro had planned to feature at least one dancer dressed as Adolf Hitler in the parade, using the theme: “It Gives you Goose Bumps.”

Viradouro would neither confirm nor deny those plans.

According to Kalichszteim’s decision, the group would face a fines of 200,000 reals ($113,000) if it ignored her order by parading without removing the mannequins and 50,000 reals ($28,000 for each dancer dressed as Hitler.

In her decision, Kalichszteim said carnival “should not be used as a tool for the cult of hate, any form of racism, beside the clear banalization of barbaric events.”

Viradouro is scheduled to present its carnival parade early Monday morning at Rio’s Sambadrome stadium.

Millions of Brazilians will watch the two-night parade on national television and in the Sambadrome parade grounds in Rio.

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14 Comments

  • Oh, yuck. This can’t be all there is to the story! It is seriously too weird. Not to get all Bakhtin-y, but there must be an explanation and it can’t be that dead Jews and a live Hitler is fabulous entertainment.

  • Giyoret, this article might give you a few extra ideas, but it very much sounds to have been for the shock effect.
    Most people are shocked enough to learn that many of the dancers in those parades are actually male. 🙂

  • Here’s my chance. Giyoret, I’ll trade ya your Brazilian music collection for my adidas Argentina jersey.

  • Middle, that’s him. Julie’s website really doesn’t do his pieces justice. John works on an intimate scale; too bad you can’t click on those images to enlarge them.

    On the same site– check out Gary Schneider, a Jewish artist b. South Africa, now living and working in NY. Gary’s portrait of yours truly is mercifully not reproduced online.

    Is nakedness OK on the sabbath?

  • I am far from an authority on what is permitted on the Sabbath. I believe that it’s a mitzvah to schtupp, which may be an easier way to make sure that happens than, say, buying roses.

  • To quote the Clintons on Obama: “by all means necessary….”

  • The Jewish aversion towards public nudity initially stems from medieval times, when religious authorities decided that ritual cleansing should not be done in rivers etc. anymore in order not to offend Christians’ views on nudity; Jewish prudery became established under American Puritan influence though. You may have noticed that many Jewish artists have portrayed nudes, in return a common prejudice in Europe during the 1920s to 1940s was that Jews spur pornography.

  • Not a chance, Tom. Nice try 🙂

    I was checking out various Brazilian websites and blogs and except for the few “free speech” advocates, the opinions expressed were all indignant and unified that this was in extremely poor taste.

    So the baddies were cut off at the pass, vociferously condemned, and the message was put out there for people to learn something. Every cloud has a silver lining.

    Ok, people, time to samba…… 🙂