Running latest TexShop on the latest MacOS X with latest LaTex and latest pandoc. 

The following pandoc typeset 

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begingroup
\obeylines

\{
\}

 \endgroup%

\end{document}

Produces 

\{
}

I would have expected

{
}

This is the pandoc parameter/script file

#!/bin/bash

# pandoc takes an input file (usually markdown) and writes an output file (latex, epub, ...)
# There is a shortcut to create pdf from markdown via latex called markdown2pdf.
# See   http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/


PATH=$PATH:/Library/TeX/texbin:/usr/texbin:/usr/local/bin

fname_with_ext=$(basename "$1")
fname="${fname_with_ext%.*}.txt"
pandoc "$1" -s -t asciidoc --no-tex-ligatures --wrap=preserve -o $fname

What do I need to change to get both curly braces correct in effect to produce

{
}