History of the Jews in Mexico
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Jews have lived in Mexico since the times of the Inquisition. Today the community numbers over 50,000, concentrated primarily in Mexico City. Other communities are found in the state of Jalisco, mainly in Guadalajara, and in Monterrey, Veracruz, and Tijuana.
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[edit] History
- See also: History of the Jews in Latin America
There have been Jews in Mexico since Hernando Cortes conquered the Aztecs, accompanied by several Conversos. Later, there arrived Jews escaping the Inquisition.[1] Some of these Spanish Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism (Converso Jews), but many maintained their Jewish religious practices in secret (for which many were killed in what is known as the Mexican Inquisition). However some Conversos and their progeny maintained the conversions to Christianity and to continue to classify them as Jews one has to accept the racial definition of Jewishness.[2]
Due to the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico, few Jews migrated there during the Spanish Colonial Period. In the 1860s, a large number of German Jews settled in Mexico as a result of invitations from Maximilian I of Mexico. Beginning in the 1880s many Ashkenazic Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia and Romania came to Mexico. Another large wave of immigration occurred as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, leading many Sephardic Jews from Turkey, Morocco, and parts of France to flee. Finally, a wave of immigrants fled the increasing Nazi persecutions in Europe during World War II.
Today, there are around 50,000 Jews in Mexico; it is one of just a handful of countries whose Jewish population is projected to grow in the future. [3] There are several sectors in the Jewish community in Mexico, the biggest of which are the Ashkenazi community. The Mizrahi community is mainly Syrian immigrants who attend the Maguén David and Monte Sinai congregations. Mexican Jews refer to the Mizrahim as "judíos árabes" or "Arab Jews"). The Sephardic community is primarily made up of descendents of Turkish immigrants.
While most Jews in Mexico are concentrated in Mexico City, there are substantial Jewish communities in Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Tijuana. Recently, a small group of Mexican Jewish families has immigrated to Cancún. There is a small group of implanted American Jews who have relocated to the retirement lake towns of Chapala and Ajijic in the state of Jalisco; they meet once a month for religious services and occasionally interact with their Mexican Jewish counterparts in close by Guadalajara.
In 1938 the Jewish Community Central Committee of Mexico ('Comité central de la comunidad judía de México') emerged as the umbrella organization for the varying ethnic and religious Jewish communities in Mexico; its analysis and opinion agency is called the Tribuna Israelita.
[edit] Mexico City
The vast majority of Mexican Jews reside in the capital, Mexico City. They have a vast network of synagogues, schools and other communal institutions. There are over 30 synagogues, most of them Orthodox. The majority of Mexico City's Jews send their children to Jewish schools which include secular as well as Haredi dayschools and Yeshivot. Several of the schools are named for school networks which existed in pre-war Europe, including the Zionist "Tarbut", the modern Orthodox "Yavne" and the secular Folkish "Yiddische Schule" where Yiddish is still taught. The Jewish Community Center known as the "Centro Deportivo Israelita" is the largest of its kind in the Jewish diaspora and includes both sports and social activities. Many Zionist youth organizations have branches in Mexico City, including Bnei Akiva, Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair.
[edit] Guadalajara
The Jewish community in Guadalajara is continually shrinking and has approximately 150 families.[4] The community is made up of almost an equal number of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. Originally the two groups had separate synagogues and did not intermarry; eventually the two groups united and almost all of today's younger families are made up of mixed Sephardic-Ashkenazi marriages. There is a community center — similar to that of a Jewish Community Center in the United States — which is the center of Jewish life in the city. The center has a sports facility, a Jewish day school, and also houses the synagogue. Because the Jews of Guadalajara rarely marry outside the Jewish community, most young adults who are interested in getting married are inclined to move to Mexico City, which has a larger Jewish population. This is the main cause of the diminishing population of the community.
In recent years the community became Modern Orthodox, which caused a sizable part of the community to break off and form a new Conservative temple and community center. This move to Modern Orthodox caused deep divisions within the community, splitting families between the two temples – intermarriage and conversions are the main issues causing the divide.[citation needed]
Among well known Jews from Guadalajara is actor, model, and singer Erick Elias who has enjoyed rising fame in the Spanish speaking world.
[edit] Monterrey
Monterrey’s founders were crypto-jewish conversos who represented the first European settlers in the vast, hostile, Amerindian territories, initially called Nuevo Leon by the new settlers. The most famous of these crypto-Jews who inhabited Monterrey is Luis de Carvajal y de el mozo; who along with his family was burned at the stake for practicing Judaism. He was the nephew of the Spanish founder of Monterrey. His memoirs suggest that, at the time, the majority of Spanish settlers in Monterrey were of Jewish descent.
The early twentieth century saw the arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. There is a small organized Jewish community numbering less that a thousand with a community center that is the center of Jewish life which houses the only synagogue, day school, and sports facilities. Although the synagogue is Modern Orthodox, most of the families adhere to a lifestyle most similar to that of the Conservative movement. The community has remained relatively stable in its numbers with a low degree of assimilation.
[edit] Conversos
There are also some Mexicans who consider themselves descendants of Conversos, Jews who converted to Catholicism to escape the Inquisition, but retained some Jewish heritage (like lighting candles on Friday nights). For example, the famous painter and Converso descendant Diego Rivera wrote in 1935, "Jewishness is the dominant element in my life. From this has come my sympathy with the downtrodden masses which motivates all my work." [5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Wolf, Isaac. Mexico at The Jewish Virtual Library - Retrieved January 8, 2007.
- ^ see Netanyahu. The Origins of the Spanish Inquisition.
- ^ Selected Indicators of World Jewry from the 2006 Annual Assessment by Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. Retrieved January 8, 2007. Page 13.
- ^ Burke, Samuel. "Judaism with Spanish flavor." Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. Retrieved January 8, 2007.
- ^ Wolf, Isaac. Mexico at The Jewish Virtual Library - Retrieved January 8, 2007.
[edit] See also
- List of Mexican Jews
- Crypto-Judaism
- History of the Jews in Latin America
- List of Latin American Jews
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