Samba and Shoah: ethnic, religious and social diversity in Brazil

This paper examines a controversial affair during Rio de Janeiro’s 2008 Carnival parade, involving a Holocaust float banned by Jewish community representatives. The episode serves as a case study for discussing Brazil’s main cultural strategies for dealing with its diverse social formation. The paper evaluates the impact of such particular modes of sociability on the decision to ban the float, while pondering over the challenges of Brazilian–Jewish cultural interactions in a global era.