Well, someone’s gone to the effort of painting a giant swastika at the bottom of a swimming pool in Pomerode, Brazil. Swell.

The discovery was made by a police helicopter in the southern state of Santa Catarina during a kidnapping investigation, CNN reports. Apparently the swastika is just 13 years old, so it can’t even be attributed to the Nazi old-guard who weaseled their way out of Europe at the end of the war and fled to Brazil. Nope, this one’s relatively fresh and legally legit—charges won’t be pressed because the pool is on private land and the homeowner “is not promoting Nazism.” (Maybe s/he played the old, ‘Oh, I’m a Buddhist card’?)

Pomerode has a large German-speaking population: about 90 per cent of the municipality is of German descent, and an annual Oktoberfest—one of the biggest in the world—is held in the nearby town of Blumenau. Most Germans emigrated to Brazil in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but a good number arrived after WWII—including an estimated 2,000 Nazis. Among them was Josef Mengele, the infamous physician and torturer of Auschwitz.

So, there you have it. Southern Brazil: exporter of supermodels; haven for Nazi sympathizers.

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Move over, Aly Raisman—the gold medalist turned Dancing with the Stars contestant is no longer the Jewish community’s Olympic Golden Girl. Who has dethroned the Hava Nagila-playing gymnast? None other than Ryan Lochte, the grill-wearing, nonsense-spouting swimmer.

Jeah.

At least that’s what Malina Saval, a mother and lifelong swimming enthusiast, argues in a Tablet essay:

And yet, I’m here to argue that it’s time we stop making fun of Lochte, at least long enough to focus on a career achievement that has thus far gone completely unnoticed in the Jewish community. Lochte, who isn’t Jewish but believes God has a “plain” for everyone, may not be a rabbinical scholar, but what he has done—and to a much larger degree than most swimmers in the history of the sport—is spread Talmudic wisdom to swim fans, Jewish and non-Jewish, all over the world.

According to Saval, “The Talmud (Kiddushin 29a) specifies three skills that parents must teach their children: Torah, how to make a living, and how to swim.” By her logic, since Lochte has made swimming cool—not just to watch on TV once every four years but to actually do—and has toured the country encouraged kids to get in the pool, he’s done a Talmudic-level service for Jewish parents.

Read the full essay here and let us know what you think in the comments.

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