Israel’s ambassador to Brazil has been mocked on social media after posting a picture of himself having dinner with the country’s president – while clumsily trying to blot out evidence of their non-kosher meal.
The Israeli embassy tweeted a picture of Yossi Sheli, its representative, having a meal with Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, prior to the Copa America football final between Brazil and Peru.
However, both the plates of Mr Sheli and Mr Bolsonaro had been scrawled over with a black pen in the picture, apparently to hide what they were eating.
Sharp-eyed social media users, however, identified the meal the two were sharing as lobster. All crustaceans are not kosher under Jewish law.
The tweet received hundreds of replies from Brazilians, many of them asking why the picture of the meal had been “censored”.
Other tweets were more satirical, reintroducing lobsters into the picture using photoshop, or showing a picture of a Little Mermaid film poster with Sebastian the crab scribbled over.
Mr Sheli, who was previously found guilty of perjury and fraud and barred from public office for three years, was appointed Israel’s ambassador to Brazil in 2017.
He has defended Mr Bolsonaro, whose inflammatory statements on LGBT+ people, women, black people and indigenous groups have led to him being compared to Donald Trump.
In April, after Mr Bolsonaro said that the crimes of the Holocaust could be forgiven but not forgotten, Mr Sheli went on Israel’s army radio to defend the Brazilian president, claiming that Mr Bolsonaro had said that “forgiveness is a personal matter, he said people can forgive, he personally does not.”
As part of his embrace of hard-right populist leaders around the globe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has developed a close relationship with Mr Bolsonaro.
The Israeli Prime Minister visited Brazil in January, with Mr Bolsonaro reciprocating by visiting Israel at the end of March.
Two months ago Mr Bolsonaro awarded Mr Sheli the National Order of the Southern Cross, the Brazil’s highest national honour for foreign dignitaries, for helping to strengthen ties between the two countries.
