History of the Jews in Mexico

During the period of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521–1821), a number of Jews came to Mexico, especially during the period of the Iberian Union (1580–1640), when Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same monarch. That political circumstance allowed freer movement by Portuguese crypto-Jewish merchants into Spanish America. When the Portuguese regained their independence from Spain in 1640, Portuguese merchants in New Spain were prosecuted by the Mexican Inquisition. When the monopoly of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico was replaced with religious toleration during the nineteenth-century Liberal reform, Jews could openly immigrate to Mexico. They came from Europe and later from the crumbling Ottoman Empire, including Syria, until the first half of the 20th century.

Today, most Jews in Mexico are descendants of this immigration and still divided by diasporic origin, principally Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim and Judaeo-Spanish-speaking Sephardim. It is an insular community with its own religious, social, and cultural institutions, mostly in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.

History

Viceroyalty of New Spain

Jews and Conversos were part of the conquest and colonization in Mexico, and key participants in the transatlantic and transpacific trade networks, as well as the development of domestic trade. Conversos accompanied Hernán Cortés in 1519. These were members of Jewish families which had been forcibly converted to Christianity to avoid expulsion from Spain after the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors. The reconquest was followed by the Spanish Inquisition, which made the Conversos one of its targets with accusations of reverting to Judaism. During this time, there were two types of Conversos: Crypto-Jews and Jews who fully converted to Catholicism. The Jews who converted were used to report Crypto-Jews to the Catholic Church, and consequently, they were awarded with high-power positions within the Catholic Church. Furthermore, during this time, the Catholic Church was responsible for social welfare and was the most powerful entity. Converso migration to the new Spanish colony began in 1530 after most of the violence from the conquest of the Aztec Empire had subsided, and the Spanish Inquisition continued. For several decades, the families lived peacefully, integrating into Mexico's elite, with some becoming prominent Catholic clergy and others returning to Jewish practice.

David L. Nathan proposed that the first coins minted in the Western Hemisphere by Spanish Conquistadors in Mexico City feature a Hebrew letter aleph (א), suggesting evidence for a Jewish presence or influence in Mexico in 1536. He notes that nearly all of the dies prepared under the tenure of the first assayer use the purported aleph symbol in place of the Christian cross potent mark, found almost universally on medieval Spanish and Mexican coinage. Nathan goes on to consider possible Jewish family connections to the known early Mexican mint workers.

The persecution of Jews came to New Spain along with the conquistadors. Bernal Díaz del Castillo described in his writings various executions of soldiers during the conquest of Mexico because they were accused of being practicing Jews, including Hernando Alonso, who built the boats Cortés used to assault Tenochtitlán. However, the Mexican Inquisition was not fully established until 1571, when it became a threat to Converso and Jewish communities with an initial purge of them from 1585 to 1601. In 1606, Mexico received an order by the King of Spain to free Conversos in Inquisition prisons. This relaxing of the Inquisition in Mexico, which was never as severe as in Spain, allowed more to come over in the first half of the 17th century. New Conversos settled in Mexico City, Acapulco, Veracruz and Campeche, as these cities offered the most opportunities for mercantile activity. Some did move to the more-outlying areas, such as Zacatecas, but they still afforded more opportunities than places farther north. There was a second Inquisition persecution of Conversos from 1642 to 1649. Then, the focus shifted to matters such as blasphemy and moral infractions. However, during the entire colonial period, practicing Jews in Spain or elsewhere could not enter Spanish colonial territory.

One notable episode during the colonial period was the establishment of the New Kingdom of León. In 1567, the Carvajal family arrived in New Spain under nobleman Luis de Carabajal y Cueva. With the exception of him and a cousin, the family was Crypto-Jewish. In 1579, Carvajal was granted land in what is now northeastern Mexico, just north of what was then considered New Spain. The area welcomed both Conversos and practicing Jews, with about 75% of the initial settlers being secretly Jewish. Some theories state that Monterrey developed as a commercial center despite its colonial era remoteness because of Crypto-Jewish influence. However, Luis de Carvajal and members of his family were persecuted in 1589 for practicing Judaism. De Carvajal's nephew, Luis de Carvajal the Younger, kept memoirs detailing his life and persecution; these are now considered to be the earliest writings by a Jew in the Americas. The auto-da-fé of Mariana Carvajal has become part of Mexican art and literature. By 1641, the colony had grown, and some of the settlers would later move to establish new settlements in Coahuila, Texas, and New Santander.

The largest number of prosecutions by the Mexican Inquisition occurred in the wake of the 1640 dissolution of the Iberian Union, when Spain and Portugal had been ruled by the same monarch. Portuguese merchants more easily entered Spanish America, and a complex community of crypto-Jews emerged, connected to transatlantic and trans-Pacific trade networks. Evidence from individual cases prosecuted by the Mexican Inquisition indicates that most crypto-Jews in Mexico or their parents had been born in Portugal, primarily from the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, or from Castelo Branco. There were a few very wealthy Portuguese merchants, who were leaders of the community, but most were shopkeepers and artisans. A prominent merchant was Simón Váez, whom the Inquisition accused of allowing his house to serve as a synagogue until the 1642 persecutions began. He had risen from humble circumstances, but he and other wealthy merchants came to socialize with crown officials and to play a prominent role among the elite. Their wealth was based on asientos (licenses) for the black slave trade in Mexico since Portugal controlled the African coast, where they were sourced. Portuguese merchants also held contracts for tax farming and supplying the Spanish fleet and forts with stores and munitions.

Post-Independence immigration

After Mexico gained its Independence, it abolished the Inquisition, but the Catholic religion was declared the official religion. The remaining Crypto-Jews still did not openly admit to their Jewish identity but began to observe various Jewish rituals, and from 1825 to 1860, a few European Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe arrived. The immigrants were not allowed to become Mexican citizens, but their main challenges to living in Mexico were economic, rather than social or religious. In 1861, a group rented a hall to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the first recorded instance of public Jewish worship. In 1865, Maximilian I of Mexico issued an edict of religious tolerance, with representatives from Jewish organizations in Europe and the United States coming to Mexico to explore the possibilities for immigration. From 1864 to 1867, Maximilian invited some European Jews from France, Belgium, and Austria-Hungary to settle in Mexico. By 1867, only twenty Jewish families were living in Mexico, with about a dozen more elsewhere.

During the Reform War, the Liberals under Benito Juárez reinforced freedom of religion, allowing those Jews who arrived after that time Mexican citizenship and full integration. In the 1880s, a significant wave of Jewish immigration began as the Mexican government invited a number of Jewish bankers to operate in the country, and the assassination of Czar Alexander II in Russia pushed Jews to leave the country. The Jews settled in Mexico City and in various other areas of the country, including rural areas, often as traveling salesmen. About half of Mexico's Jewish population can be linked to this wave of immigration. Another group of Jews that came at this time were industrialists from France. However, many of the French arrivals were not interested in staying permanently and returned after making their fortunes in Mexico. However, a few married and stayed, leaving behind in Mexico City last names such as Herzog, Scherer, and Levy.

Jewish immigrants in Mexico City eventually built businesses such as a haberdashery on Madero Street that was a center of European fashion and La Esmeralda jewelry store (now the Museo del Estanquillo) with a reputation similar to Tiffany's on the corner of Isabel la Católica and Madero. The Jewish owner of El Salon Rojo, one of the capital's first movie houses, helped to develop the country's first Jewish cemetery.

During the very late 19th century into the 20th, Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jews also began arriving from what is now Syria and the rest of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, forming the Maguén David and Monte Sinaí communities. These, with those still coming from Eastern Europe, were usually poorer, shoemakers, furriers, peddlers, and tailors, who first lived in cities such as Puebla, Veracruz, and Chiapas before migrating to Mexico City. For the Sephardic Jews, similar language and culture made it easier for them to adapt.

In 1900, the Mexican census counted 134 Jews in the country. From then until 1950, an estimated 7,300 Jewish people immigrated to Mexico from Eastern Europe, 2,640 from Spain or the former Ottoman Empire, and 1,620 from Cuba and the United States. These various Jewish groups formed their own religious congregations and social institutions. Turkish Jews began holding open religious services in 1901 and founded the first Talmud Torah in 1905, as an educational institution for boys. Ashkenazi Jews began holding open services as early as 1904. The first formal Jewish organization in Mexico, the Monte Sinaí community, was founded in 1912.

During the Mexican Revolution, many foreigners, including Jews, left the country, but immediately after, Jews began to arrive in substantial numbers again. Between 1917 and 1920 they began to come from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, the Balkans and the Middle East. The rate increased in 1921, when the United States imposed immigration quotas. Ten thousand arrived from Eastern Europe to the port of Veracruz at the invitation of President Plutarco Elías Calles. Jewish organizations such as the Comité de Damas and North American B'nai B'rith were formed to help the new arrivals adapt. In the 1920s, the Jewish community grew and prospered in Mexico. The immigration rate slowed after 1929 because of the Great Depression and new immigration policies which favored those with a more similar ethnic and religious background to that of Mexico.

Most of the Jewish communities' social and religious organizations were formally founded in the first half of the 20th century. These include the Sociedad Beneficiencia Alianza Monte Sinaí (1912), the Young Men's Hebrew Association in Mexico City. (1917), the first K’tav or Jewish religious school (1917), the first federally recognized synagogue under the terms of the Constitution of 1917 (1918), the Talmud Torá Hatihiá (1919), the Congregación Nidje Israel for Ashkenazi Jews (1922), the first Zionist organization (1922), the first Ashkenazi religious school (1922), the Asociación Cultural IL Peretz Farein, later called the Idisher Kultur Guezelshaft (1922), the Har Sinaé synagogue for the Damascus Jewish community, (1923), the first Keren Hayeson or campaign for the National Fund for Palestine (1923), the Centro Israelita and first synagogue in Monterrey (1923), the Colegio Israelita de México (1924), the Agudat Ajim community in Guadalajara (1923), the Bnej Kedem Sephardic community Center (1926), the Nidje Israel Ashkenazi cemetery (1929), the Cámara Israelita de Industria y Comerico in Méxicoand the Unión de Literatos y Artistas Judíos (1931), the Federación de Sociedades Israelitas de México (1932), the Colegio Israelita Hatikva in Monterrey (1932), B'nai B'rith (1934), the Sociedad de Beneficiencia Sdadá Umarpé for the Aleppo Jewish community, today the Comunidad Maguén David (1938) and the first Zionist convention (1938) . In addition various newspapers and other periodicals were established in various languages such as Mexicanisher Idish Leben (Yiddish, 1927), Der Veg (Yiddish with Spanish section, 1929), Di shtime (Yiddish, 1935) and La Verdad (Spanish, 1936). The first printing press for the Hebrew alphabet was brought to Mexico in 1930.

The Jewish population in Mexico was estimated at 21,000 in 1930. From then until the 1940s, the Jews who arrived were those fleeing the Nazis, but this immigration was not as large as in previous decades, as most of those who arrived were those who already had family and friends in the country.

Despite its strong Catholic identity and history of the Inquisition, there has been little intolerance or resistance to Jewish immigration into Mexico. While the Catholic Church did not welcome Jewish immigration in the 19th century, it was still struggling against the government restrictions and saw growing Protestantism as a greater threat than that of the Jewish community. Over the 20th century, the Mexican Catholic Church lost its opposition to the Jewish presence. The only recorded incidents of significant antisemitism came in the 1930s during economic depression. Mexican labor unions pressured the government to restrict Chinese and Jewish immigration. In May 1931, 250 Jewish merchants were expelled from the La Lagunilla Market in Mexico City. In the late 1930s, some anti-Jewish demonstrations erupted, mostly by Nazi supporters financed by Berlin. In 1937, an immigrant quota system was initiated, which restricted immigration from certain countries such as Poland to 100 people per year, shutting out many Jewish would-be-immigrants. However, at the same time the Mexican government allowed for some immigration of refugees, for example looking the other way when 200 Jews from Cuba entered the country illegally under the government of Lázaro Cárdenas.

The Mexican government deported 21 stateless Jews in late 1938 and had decreed that stateless male refugees must commit to marrying indigenous women in order to create mestizo families.

20th century institutions and integration

Jewish religious and social institutions coalesced and grew in the mid 20th century with the Centro Cultural Israelita (1941), the Comité Central Israelita legally recognized to represent the Jewish community (1942), the Unión Sefaradí receiving official recognition (1943), the founding of the Comité Unido de Antidifamación (1943), the formation of the Comité Unido de Tribuna Israelita by the Comité Central Israelita and the Logia Mexicana del B'nai B'rith (1944), the founding of the Unión Israelita Maguén David in Tijuana (1946), the Centro Cultural México Israel (1947), the Colegio Israelita de Guadalajara (1949), the Centro Deportivo Israelita (1950), the Beth Israel Community Center for English speakers (1957) and the Nidje Israel Temple in Acapulco Street in Mexico City (1965).

In 1987, the Tribuna Israelita, along with Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), began a series of cultural presentations about Judaism in Mexico. However, little attention was paid to the history of Jews in Mexico until the 1990s. In 1992, a study of Jewish communities in Mexico was published by UNAM in collaboration with the Tribuna Israelita and the Comité Central Israelita de México, called Imágenes de un Encuentro: La Presencia Judía en México Durante La Primera Mitad del Siglo XX (Images of an Encounter: The Jewish Presence in Mexico during the First Half of the 20th Century), which received the CANIEM Prize in 1993. It depicts Mexican Jews as well integrated into Mexican society but with more observance of religion in everyday life than most other Jews of the Diaspora. In 1995, Tribuna Israelita co-sponsored Las Jornadas Contra del Racismo along with the Secretaría de Educación Pública and other organizations.

21st century and modern immigration

In the 21st century, the National Institute of Anthropology and History has made significant discoveries of colonial Crypto-Jewish heritage. Including the identification and restoration of the mikveh of Juliantla, Guerrero. Dated to the late 16th century, this is the oldest mikveh in the Americas. In 2017, the Mexican Consulate in New York City recovered the Carvajal Manuscript, the oldest known work by a Jewish author in the Americas, after it was stolen from the National Archives in 1932.

There has not been a new wave of Jewish immigration from the Old World to Mexico in the 21st century, instead small numbers of Jews have arrived as part of larger general migrations from Latin American countries. In 2021, construction began on the Ciudad de la Torá in Ixtapan de la Sal, a planned community aimed at attracting Haredi Jews from within Mexico as well as immigrants from Latin America.

As of the September 2019 deadline, there had been more than 33,000 Mexican applications for Spanish citizenship through a 2015 program aimed at the descendants of the Jewish expulsions from Spain. By October 2019, only 8,128 applicants had been processed, of which 815 were granted Spanish citizenship. In early 2021, former President of Mexico (1988–1994) Carlos Salinas de Gortari obtained Spanish citizenship through this program.

In 2018, Claudia Sheinbaum became the first Jewish person and first elected woman (second after interim Rosario Robles) to be the Head of Government of Mexico City. In 2023, she resigned her position in order to launch her candidacy for the presidency in the 2024 election. In June 2024, she was elected President of Mexico, becoming the first woman and the first person of predominantly Jewish heritage to hold the office.