Just a day after new elections were called, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left the campaign trail Thursday evening to spend five days in Brazil, to attend the inauguration of a man who said he wants to upgrade ties with Israel and move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem: Jair Bolsonaro, Trend reports referring to The Jerusalem Post.
This will be the first-ever visit of a sitting Israeli prime minister to Brazil, the world’s fifth most populous country and the world’s eighth largest economy. With an estimated Jewish population of some 120,000, it is also the second-largest Jewish community in Latin America – after Argentina – and the ninth-largest Jewish community in the world.
Netanyahu is being joined on this trip by his wife, Sarah, as well as his son, Yair. According to a Channel 10 report, the Netanyahu family said Yair is paying for his own flight and accommodations.
Netanyahu’s trip – a significant chunk of time at the very beginning of an election campaign – will begin Friday in Rio de Janeiro, where he is scheduled to meet for a 30-minute private meeting with Bolsonaro.
The two leaders will then be joined by the two men Bolsonaro has selected to serve as foreign minister and defense minister: Ernesto Araujo and Fernando Azevedo. At 5 pm he is scheduled to take part in an event at the Orthodox Kehilat Yaakov synagogue in Copacabana. Shabbat begins in Rio at 7:21.
During his trip, he also has scheduled meetings with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, and Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera.