Silvio Santos, legendary Jewish Brazilian TV host and media mogul, dies at 93

(JTA) — RIO DE JANEIRO — Silvio Santos, a son of Sephardic Jewish immigrants who rose from working-class roots to become one of Brazil’s wealthiest men and a popular television personality, died Aug. 17. He was 93.

Born in Rio de Janeiro to a Greek Jewish father and a Turkish Jewish mother, the former street vendor built a media empire, including SBT, one of Brazil’s top three television networks. Calling him “Brazil’s first-ever celebrity billionaire,” Forbes magazine once compared him to Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg.

“He was the greatest personality in the history of Brazilian television, and one of the country’s greatest communicators,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva tweeted shortly after Santos’ death, from bronchopneumonia due to an H1N1 infection, was made public.

“His departure leaves a void on Brazilian television and marks the end of an era,” added da Silva, who declared a three-day national mourning period.

Silvio Santos was the stage name of Senor Abravanel, who came to tears on air in 1988 when he proudly shared his epic family roots.

He was a descendant of Isaac Abravanel, a Portuguese Jewish statesman, scholar and financier in the 15th century who became King Afonso V’s treasurer. In Spain, he was unable to use his wealth and position to reverse the royal decree expelling all Jews in 1492. Abravanel (often rendered Abarbanel), who died in Venice in 1508, was one of the primary funders of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World, and his Torah commentaries are still cited by scholars of Jewish text.

Honored for Jewish legacy

Although he never made it public, Silvio Santos made generous donations to the Jewish community. Despite his wife and daughters being devout Christians, he once educated millions of viewers about Yom Kippur and the reasons why he fasted as a Jew.

“Santos always made a point of maintaining his roots and values, becoming a symbol of pride for Jews throughout Brazil,” the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, Brazil’s umbrella Jewish organization, said in a statement. “His contribution goes beyond television. His influence and leadership emerge as an important legacy for future generations.”

Following a personal request to his family, Santos had a Jewish funeral on Sunday.

“Although he was not an Orthodox Jew, Silvio Santos was known for his essentially Jewish behavior,” the confederation’s president Claudio Lottenberg told CNN Brazil.

In 2013, Silvio Santos explained why he didn’t sell time slots on SBT to evangelical churches, a strategy used by other TV channels to increase revenue.

“Don’t you know that Jews lost everything when they let other religions into Israel?” he told Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. “Jews cannot allow another religion into their homes. That’s why I don’t allow any religion into SBT, which is a Jewish home.”

In his Programa Silvio Santos, one of Brazil’s longest-running television programs, the entertainer led game shows that became very popular with lower-income families. One of his most famous gimmicks was throwing paper airplanes made of money bills into the audience while shouting, “Who wants money?” as the crowd scrambled for them.

Silvio Santos’ voice, laughter and perfectly coiffed dyed-brown hair became fodder among famous humorists and imitators. He constantly interacted with audience members, and with a custom microphone attached to his collar, he was free to wave his hands in the air.

s the son of a former Jewish dockworker from Salonika who immigrated to Brazil at the turn of the century.

Born Dec. 12, 1930, Santos was the son of  Alberto Abravanel, a dockworker from Salonika who immigrated to Brazil at the turn of the century. A well-known figure around the port of Rio de Janeiro, Moises eked out a living working as an interpreter and tourist guide. He was fluent in about a dozen languages, including Yiddish, which he spoke as freely as Ladino, the language spoken in the Abravanels’ Sephardic household.

Santos’ mother, Rebecca Caro, was born in Smyrna, Turkey in 1905.

At the age of 14, Santos sold pens and plastic covers for voter IDs on the street. His sales pitches were so engaging that they led to an offer to audition as a radio host. His first television job came in the early 1960s. About a decade later, he acquired his first television concession and never looked back.

Silvio Santos’ business empire, which included a cosmetics company, real estate assets and a bank, generated annual revenues of $2 billion in 2013, reported Forbes. Santos became Brazil’s single biggest individual taxpayer.

In 1989, he ventured into politics by launching a presidential campaign. However, his bid was cut short when the electoral authorities disqualified him due to his ownership of a television network.

In 2001, Silvio Santos’ life story was honored by the samba school Tradicao during Rio’s Carnival parade. Months later, he made headlines again when he was kidnapped for seven hours, just after his daughter Patricia Abravanel had been rescued from the same kidnapper.

Silvio Santos is survived by his wife Iris, six daughters, 14 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.