January 7, 2005/Tevet 26 5765, Vol. 57, No. 19
Judaism with Spanish flavorASU student explores Jewish Mexico
SAMUEL BURKE
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The Jewish Studies department at Arizona State University recently organized a trip to study Jewish culture in Mexico. The following is written by one of the students who attended the trip. |
 ASU students Selene Levya-Rios, left, Samuel Burke and Patricia Nuriel stand on the ancient pyramids in Mexico. Photo courtesy of Samuel Burke |
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The group visited Mexico's two largest Jewish communities in Mexico City and Guadalajara. One of our first visits was a meeting with the Tribuna Israelita, which functions as the central organization of Jewish communities in Mexico.
The organization serves in many capacities, including working with Jewish families whose family members have been kidnapped. Unfortunately, in Mexico City, wealthy families of all backgrounds are often the targets of kidnappers. Six Jews have been kidnapped, but with the help and expertise of the unit from Tribuna Israelita, all six have been returned safely.
The organization has also sponsored the relocation to Mexico of a number of Jewish families from Argentina. It is incredibly difficult to get Mexican citizenship, but the agency promised the Mexican government they would be financially responsible for those looking to escape the poor economic conditions in Argentina.
Jews of America and Mexico both have an interest in preserving and documenting Jewish history. In Mexico City, the Center for Documentation and Investigation of the Jewish Community archives anything Jewish from Mexico. The organization has an extensive collection of books, movies, tapes, scriptures and photos. There are more than 15,000 books, many of which were sent to Mexico for safeguarding after World War II. The staff has literally dug through thousands of files in poor storage conditions and recovered material that was damaged in the devastating 1985 earthquake.
Immigration records show a substantial number of Jews have immigrated from Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, Russia, and even some from Germany.
In between our meetings with leaders of the Jewish community, we stopped at many of Mexico's most famous historical sites, museums and landmarks. Among our stops was a visit to the homes of Diego Rivera and Frida Khalo, two of the most important figures in Mexico's cultural history, both of Jewish heritage. In one of Khalo's paintings, she wrote about her German-born Jewish father and how proud she was of his work against Hitler before he was forced to flee Germany. Like many famous Mexicans, Rivera acknowledged his Jewish ancestry and wrote about how his Jewish roots influenced his work.
Because this trip represents the interest that ASU's Jewish Studies Program has in making Jewish Latin America one of its programmatic emphases, it was vital that we meet the scholars and academics of the Jewish community. One of those scholars, Profesora Schulamit Goldsmit Brindis, head of the Jewish Studies program at the Universidad Iberoamericana, gave us our first real insight into the Jewish community in Mexico. An interesting fact is that around 95 percent of Jewish children in Mexico City attend Jewish day schools until college. The community credits these schools with maintaining the Jewish communities in Mexico.
One of the most fascinating topics Brindis discussed was the "crypto-Jews," or Conversos. These groups of people came to the Americas and were forced to practice Judaism in secret during the Spanish Inquisition. Eventually, some of these families became Catholic and lost the knowledge they were once Jews, but they kept many of the customs and traditions from their Jewish past, such as lighting candles on Friday nights and keeping meat and dairy separate.
We also met Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, a Jewish writer who was born in Spain, was forced to flee to France, then moved to Cuba, finally ending up in Mexico - all by age 5. Huberman's personal story was particularly interesting because she came from a Spanish family that practiced no religion, but her mother secretly told her that she was Jewish and that she had to marry a Jewish husband.
Later that evening we finished the Mexico City leg of our trip with an evening at the home of Sara Sefchovich and Martínez Assad. We had dinner with the couple and many of the other leaders in the Jewish community. Also present was a member of the Costa Rican-Jewish community, the wife of Costa Rica's congressional president.
The second part of our trip took us to the city of Guadalajara. We arrived on a Friday and were picked up by two of the community's leaders to take us to Shabbat services. In stark contrast with the growing Jewish community in Mexico City, Guadalajara's is shrinking - around 100 families make up this community.
We attended services at the Orthodox congregation. The service was virtually identical to Shabbat services led in the United States: All of the same prayers and songs in Hebrew, and after the Torah portion of the service, the rabbi spoke, in Spanish, about how the biblical portion applied to today's society. It was an incredible feeling to know that all over the world on Friday nights Jews of different walks of life and languages are speaking the same words and practicing the same customs.
As in the community in Mexico City, nearly all of the children in Guadalajara's community go to Jewish day schools. Families that cannot afford the schools are supported financially by the rest of the community through scholarships.
The fact that this community's population is shrinking seems to loom over its members. The president of the community explained that because the families are so close-knit and the children grow up in such a close environment, it is difficult for teenagers to date - their peers are like brothers and sisters, not boyfriends and girlfriends. The president also talked about the growing opportunities in places outside of the city.
It was interesting to see the difference between the large vibrant Jewish community in Mexico City and the smaller, dying community in Guadalajara desperately trying to preserve itself - like many countries in Latin America, such as Guatemala and Uruguay, whose Jewish communitites are rapidly dying.
It was moving to learn that in Mexico's predominately Catholic society, Jews have been met with tolerance and acceptance, yet have remained pro-active to maintain good relations.
The trip to Jewish Mexico showed all of us how similar Jewish communities are all over the world, regardless of location and language. There is a strong sense that Jews everywhere - in the face of small numbers - are very devoted to documenting our past, maintaining customs, preserving our ways, and understanding the significance and cultural effects of the Diaspora. Jews seem to be able to adapt no matter where they go, all around the world.
Samuel Burke is a Spanish major at Arizona State University and one of three students to go on the Jewish Mexico trip.