A world-renowned hospital established by Jews treated the greatest footballer in history, Pelé, as he lay dying from cancer in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Pelé, 82, who helped Brazil win three World Cups, in 1958, 1962 and 1970, died on 27 December in the Israelite Albert Einstein Hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for colon cancer.

The hospital has been recently rated as the 17th best in the world by Forbes magazine.

Founded with money from a charity set up by wealthy Jews in Sao Paulo in the 1950s, and inaugurated in 1971, it has close links with the Technion technical university in Haifa, Israel.

The Albert Einstein Hospital, rated the best in all of Latin America, is presided over by a doctor who is proud of the hospital's -- and his own -- Jewish roots.

“Our hospital symbolises the value of saving lives, which is so important in Jewish tradition," declared Dr Sidney Klajner, the hospital's president. 

"Albert Einstein [Hospital] was founded on four Jewish precepts: mitzva, refua, chinuch and tzedakah (good deeds, healing, education and charity)," he told a mission to the Technion in 2021.

Highly rated for its cancer and cardiac pioneering work, the hospital has also been developing primary health care in the community, especially in a favela nearby.