Event organized by the Center for Brazilian Studies

Tuesday, October 20, 2026
4:00 PM (Pacific Time)
Bunche Hall, Rm 10383

Saravá Shalom is a poetic documentary about dialogue between Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous and Jewish mystical traditions. André Feitosa, artist from Northern Brazil, discovered that his family descends from enslaved Africans, Indigenous people and Jews who were converted by the Inquisition. André delved into the archives and reconstructed his family tree for dozens of generations. Where he lacked records, he consulted mediums in the Afro-Brazilian temples. The film travels from the sacred mountains in the south of Brazil to the backlands of the Northeast, from the spiritist Jewish center in Rio de Janeiro to the Inquisition squares in Portugal, weaving together worlds and diasporas in a single enchanted temple of the “Synagogue of Ancestral Commitments.”

Alex Minkin is a visual anthropologist and cultural activist, focusing his research on the intersections between Jewish and Brazilian cultures. Alex studied at the Archives Project of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Moscow and graduated from the James Striar School of General Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University in New York.

Cost : Free and Open to the Public

Sponsor(s): Center for Brazilian Studies, Latin American Institute, African Studies Center, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies