File number: brbf0108

© South American Pictures/ Tony Morrison

Brazil: Pernambuco state: Recife, the name means reef, is the state capital and was founded in 1637 on several low islands of land reclaimed from the sea. The Singagoga Kahal Zur Israel in the centre of the photo dates from 1637 and is the oldest synagogue in the Americas. The founders were Jews who fled the Inquisition in Iberia for the safety of Recife, then under Dutch control.