PART XX Latino Jews, Afro-Latinos, and Amerindians .docx

PART XX
Latino Jews, Afro-Latinos, and Amerindians
Page 329
Political and economic strife combined with anti-Semitism
prompted more than 100,000
Jews from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East to
emigrate to Latin America at the end of
the nineteenth century and throughout the period of the two
world wars. Large urban areas
such as Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo,
Santiago, Mexico City, and
Caracas today possess communities large enough to forge strong
cultural, religious, and
educational associations. Ashkenazim from North Africa and
central and eastern Europe arrived
first; they and their descendants represent the majority of Jews
who reside in Latin America
today. Sephardim from the eastern Mediterranean constitute the
second largest group. Both
adhered to Orthodox Judaism. Lesser numbers following

Conservative or Reform rituals
migrated later. These groups generally developed independent
religious and social
organizations with little intermingling between them, although
this appeared to change in
the late twentieth century. Whatever the country of origin, most
Jews formed part of
the middle and upper-middle classes and engaged in professions
such as merchandising,
scientific research, and education. Only a few Jews gained
political prominence (most notably in
Argentina and Uruguay), due in part to their relatively small
numbers and to the misguided
belief that they controlled vast economic resources and
perpetuated serious social inequalities.
The activities of the Inquisition fostered anti-Semitic attitudes
during the colonial period, and
such attitudes linger in the form of painted swastikas on
buildings and acts of terrorism such as
the bombing in 1992 of Argentina's Israeli embassy, which
killed twenty-nine, and the bombing
in 1994 of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, which
killed eighty-five. The Jewish
People Policy Planning Institute estimated the total Jewish

population in Latin America for 2005
to be 398,000, down from 514,000 in 1970—the decrease due to
economic factors, especially in
Argentina. The three countries with the largest Jewish presence
are Argentina (185,000), Brazil
(97,000), and Mexico (40,000).1
Slaves brought to the New World African traditions which, over
time, blended with
Christian and indigenous elements. Some followers view these
religious beliefs as separate and
distinct from Catholicism while others practice both
simultaneously, though without church
sanction. During the colonial period the Spanish Inquisition
actively pursued blacks and others
who used witchcraft, but with limited success; one of the
reasons for the establishment of a
tribunal of the Inquisition in Cartagena in 1610, in fact, was to
root out African religious
traditions at a major port of entry for African slaves in Spanish
America. It is not surprising that
African religious influence proved especially enduring in slave
areas replenished by frequent

arrivals. This was particularly true in Cuba and Brazil, which
received more than 800,000 and
4,000,000 slaves respectively—many coming in the nineteenth
century before the final
abolition of slavery in these areas in 1886 and 1888.
The Afro-Cuban religious traditions of Abakuá, Palo Monte, and
Santería have flourished
since the early colonial period. All three, notes George Reid
Andrews, share common traits:
they revere spirits of the dead, acknowledge the power of
supernatural forces found in nature,
and maintain tightly knit social structures in which members
receive select sacred knowledge of
rituals and practice as they grow within the religion. But
significant differences exist as well. The
Abakuá, like those who follow the leopard cult in Africa, are
polytheistic. Devotees of Palo
Monte believe in one all-powerful creator god, Nzambi Mpungu,
but rely on the intercession of
the spirits of deceased ancestors in order to resolve conflicts
and cure afflictions. Followers of
Santería, or “the way of the Saints,” accept the Christian God
and saints as well as African
deities such as Shangó, the god of thunder and lightning. They

also use orishas, or
anthropomorphized natural objects, to effect favors on their
behalf, and “feed” these orishas
with animal sacrifices. Cuban authorities between 1900 and
1920 falsely accused followers of
African-based religions of kidnapping and murdering white
Catholics, although, as Andrews
states, the authorities’ real intention may have been to dissuade
whites from continuing to join
the mostly black- and mulatto-directed religions. The exodus of
Cubans since the revolution of
1959 has helped to spread Afro-Cuban religious beliefs,
especially Santería, to other countries
in Latin America as well as to the United States. In Venezuela,
for example, followers of the
ancient spiritist cult of María Lionza had previously sought the
intercession of Amerindian
chiefs, Catholic saints, and even national heroes such as Simón
Bolívar. With the arrival of
Santería devotees, however, these traditional intercessors have
been mostly replaced by Cuban
orishas, and the Venezuelan Santería movement now numbers in
the thousands.2
Afro-Brazilian religions, mostly Candomblé and Umbanda, have

expanded rapidly since
the early twentieth century. Candomblé is similar to Santería in
that it emanates from the
African Yoruba area of southwestern Nigeria and Benin and
adopts aspects of Catholic liturgy
such as veneration of the saints. Believers might claim to be
Catholics simultaneously, though
the Catholic Church rejects such dualism and views Afro-
Brazilian religions as devil worship.
Umbanda, an offshoot of Candomblé, has become the most
popular Afro-Brazilian religion since
its inception in the 1920s, presently accounting for more than
twenty million followers. Its
name derives from the Abanheenga language of the Tupi-
Guaraní and means “the set of divine
laws.”3 John Burdick's work on religions in Brazil includes
analysis of the belief system of
Umbandistas. Chefes and ogãs, or revered spiritual leaders, hold
rituals that are attended by
groups ranging from a few to several hundred members.
Umbandistas believe that one's
goodness and purity at death determines one's location in the
multitiered astral plane. The
dead become spirits who wish to become completely pure and to

occupy the highest plane.
Female and male mediums help contact the spirits. Mediums
acquire this ability either through
birth or vocation. Novice mediums tend to twitch wildly while
they receive spirit possession
whereas more skilled and older mediums receive the spirit
calmly and naturally. Both humans
and spirits need the help of the mediums, since the former seek
spiritual healing, medicinal
cures, and advice while the latter seek to purify themselves.
Reincarnation allows all spirits to
improve their place on the multitiered astral plane. Umbandan
rituals usually take several hours
and include drumming, the aroma of incense, and mediums who
smoke cigars and drink
alcohol, especially beer and cachaça, in preparation for
communication with the spirits. “The
basic umbandista assumption,” notes Burdick, “is that no matter
how much faith and love one
has in one's heart, one may still be affected by envious or
unscrupulous neighbors.”4 So much
is outside the control of the poor, marginalized followers of
Umbanda that they are

undoubtedly comforted by this nonjudgmental religious system,
which does not blame them
for their own maladies and afflictions or impose rigid codes of
conduct that deny the joys of life.
136. Argentinian Jews Flourish despite Adversity
The article below, one of hundreds by Daniel J. Elazar (1934-
1999), Ph.D., University
of Chicago, late professor of political science at Temple
University, Philadelphia, and of
intergovernmental relations at Bar-Ilan University in Israel,
demonstrates one of his
major interests: Jewish community organization worldwide.
The following excerpts must be regarded as no longer current
because Elazar's
data, gathered in Argentina in 1986, allowed for positive
conclusions about the future of
Argentine Jewry. Then came the bombing of the Israeli embassy
in 1992 and the total
destruction of the AMIA (Argentina Jewish Mutual Aid Society)
building in 1994, which
cost eighty-five lives. These anti-Semitic terrorist acts were
followed by the catastrophic
collapse, in 2001-2002, of the Argentine economy, which wiped
out much of the middle-
class Jewish community, reducing thousands to destitution.
Professor Elazar's article is
relevant, however, because it demonstrates that even in the face
of long-time
Argentinian anti-Semitism (especially during the 1960s and the

Dirty War [see reading
158]) the Jewish community was able to maintain and
strengthen its identity.
Is the article below merely sociological, with only passing
reference to “Jewish
religious life…becom[ing] more important”? Does it provide
any specific insight into the
religious dimension of Jewish life in Argentina?
For two decades Argentinian Jewry has been portrayed as a
dying community. First
there was the collapse of the community's cooperative banking
system in the 1960s. Then the
disproportionate impact of right-wing counter-terror on the
Jewish community. That was
followed by a general sense of decline in the commitment of
individual Jews to communal
institutions as reflected in lower turnout in community elections
and less involvement in
communal activities other than the sports clubs which were
refuges for Jews but not
strongholds of Jewishness.
Then in the 1970s came the demographic issue. A Tel Aviv
University study of

Argentinian Jewry revealed that accepted estimates of half a
million Jews in the country were
gross exaggerations. Subsequent studies by the Hebrew
University demographers dropped the
number of Jews to below 300,000, initially 265,000 and most
recently less than 235,000,
indicating that assimilation and emigration were taking a drastic
toll. For most of the Jewish
world the verdict was that we are witnessing the effective end
of a community once viewed as
a model of successful Jewish communal life in the diaspora.
This winter's recent [1986-87] visit to Argentina has left me
with the belief that the
obituary is premature. The problems of Argentinian Jewry are
real enough, whether they are
the common problems of assimilation and acculturation shared
by all the diaspora or whether
they are problems distinctive to the Argentinian situation. But
that is not the whole story. My
first surprise was with regard to the demographic situation.
True, it was not entirely a surprise
since I had earlier come to the conclusion that proper scientific
caution had led the
demographers to somewhat underestimate the number of Jews in

Argentina. But there I
discovered that the Vaad HaKehilot, the federation of Jewish
communities, had begun to
conduct sample censuses of its own in smaller provincial
communities and in the two just
completed they had discovered significantly larger numbers of
Jews than they had hitherto
estimated. If future censuses of this kind follow the same
pattern, then we will have to
substantially revise our present estimates upward.
My next surprise was to find that Hebrew was still more
widespread as the language of
the Jewish leadership than in any other diaspora community that
I know. I would not like to
suggest that it is the common Jewish language in Argentina but
it was clearly easier for me to
speak Hebrew than English with many of the people that I met.
Less surprising but still pleasing
was to note that although the old Eastern European-originated
institutions of the community
have indeed declined, the community is regrouping around
others.
Particularly notable in this respect is the revival among the
Sephardic Argentinian

Jewry. The Sephardim had always been able to better
accommodate their Jewishness with
integration into larger Argentinian society since they came from
similarly Mediterranean
civilizations. Nevertheless, their Jewish ways remained private,
confined to their homes and
synagogues.
Now the Sephardim are undergoing something of a Jewish
renaissance, expanding their
institutions and most especially their day schools, and
undergoing a religious revival as well. In
all of this they are helped by the fact that their institutions have
more money at their disposal
(at least per capita) than those of the Ashkenazi community.
The Ashkenazim are still suffering
from the failure of their cooperative banks, while the Sephardic
Banco de Mayo survived and
has subsequently flourished so that it can provide substantial
funding and credit for community
projects. In addition, the younger generation of Sephardim is
more likely to continue in the
family business than is the case among the Ashkenazim, where
the younger generation tends to

go into academic life or the professions, further reducing the
disposable wealth that can be
tapped for communal purposes.
In general, Jewish religious life in Argentina has become more
important. Originally an
almost totally secular community with an absolute minimum of
traditional Orthodox
institutions, maintained principally for appearances sake, today
an increasing number of
Argentinian Jews are finding out what Jews in other diasporas
have discovered, that surviving
as Jews requires some kind of religious identification and
expression. […]
Another sign of the new-found energy among Argentinian Jews
was to be found at the
meeting of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association. That
organization, founded originally
by North Americans, led by Dr. Judith Laiken Elkin of
Michigan, the organization's driving force,
could not even meet in Latin America until its fifth conference.
This year for the first time its
meeting was held outside of the United States, in Buenos Aires
with the co-sponsorship of the

AMIA, the umbrella organization or kehilla, of Buenos Aires.
Even more impressive were the
number of young Latin American and particularly Argentinian
scholars who presented papers at
the meeting, in many cases based upon field research. In other
words, Argentinian Jewry is
becoming sufficiently mature to begin to examine itself through
accepted scientific methods
and sufficiently important in the eyes of its younger generation
to be considered worth
examining. […]
None of this is to suggest that Argentinian Jewry is not
undergoing all the pangs of
assimilation or confronting all the elements of anti-Semitism,
usually discussed in describing it.
What is important to note is that there is another side to the
story as well. As always, we have a
community of Jews living on the razor's edge, showing signs of
both growth and decline. Equally
important, no longer is Argentinian Jewry simply a Zionist or
Israeli colony. Today it is moving
toward a situation where its voice could also be heard in the
councils of world Jewry and it will

have something to contribute.
137. Future Prospects for the Argentinian Jewish Community
The following reading, published in 2005 by the Department for
Jewish Zionist
Education, a part of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is obviously a
necessary complement
of the preceding report by Elazar (1987). What insights does it
offer about Jewish
religious practice in Argentina? Does it preclude the positive
approach of Daniel Elazar?
[I]t is important to understand that—unlike the situation in
some other national
communities where the principal means to identify as a Jew is
through religious affiliation and
membership in a synagogue—the situation in Argentina has long
been more about affiliating
through organizations with a particular cultural and political
definition. Organisations such as
the Jewish socialist Bund have lasted far longer than in almost
any other places in the Jewish
world and left-wing political frameworks within the Jewish
community have made their mark

socially and culturally. […]
Traditionally, there has been a very strong and vibrant cultural
and educational life
within the Jewish community. In 1999, some 50% of the age
group went to Jewish day
schools—a very large percentage for any Diaspora country.
Today, the numbers and the
percentage are lower. There are currently about forty Jewish
schools (of which, some thirty are
in Buenos Aires), with some 16,000 students, but this is a
downward trend.
In cultural terms, the community has developed many vibrant
institutions, many of
which were connected, in one way or other, to Zionism and
Hebrew culture, both of which have
left deep marks on the community. There are many competent
Hebrew speakers in the Jewish
community, as a result of the educational process through which
many have passed, such as
Bamah—the Jewish Educator House—and Ebraica—the Jewish
Community Center. Zionist
youth movements are also strong in the community, although
they were affected by the recent
economic difficulties; they survived the crisis and continue to

be an important influence on
Jewish youth in Argentina. […]
There has been considerable assimilation in the community. The
current estimate for
the whole of Argentina stands at about 45% of all marriages.
There are cases of intermarriage recorded in the Jewish
agricultural colonies in the early
years of the twentieth century, but the numbers went up greatly
among the native-born second
and third generation. The numbers of out-marrieds today are
very high, especially in the
smaller provincial towns outside of Buenos Aires. […]
The community at present numbers about 187,000. A generation
ago it was over
300,000. Some of the numbers have been lost to Aliyah, while
others represent emigration to
western countries, but much of the drop in numbers represents
assimilation and intermarriage.
To a large extent, the community's future is also linked to
Argentina's economic
situation and Antisemitism. If the economy continues to
improve to the status quo ante, it
would be reasonable to assume that most of the Jewish

community will prefer to remain in
Argentina, and preserve their Jewish identity through the
various frameworks and options in
the community.
138. Jewish Life in Contemporary Mexico
Shep Lenchek (c. 1920-2004), a U.S. businessman, retired in
Mexico in 1991
where he quickly became a writer for El ojo del lago, the
leading English-
language monthly of Mexico, staffed by members of the U.S.
community. He was
treasurer of the Chapala delegation of the Mexican Red Cross
from 1993 until his
death in 2004. The following are excerpts from the concluding
installment of
“Jews in Mexico, A Struggle for Survival” (2000). What is the
religious dimension
of Lenchek's positive portrait of the Mexican Jewish
community?
Most Mexican Jews are well rooted in the society and the
younger members of the
group are beginning to take part in politics, something the older
generations avoided. There is

evidence that if Jews do choose to enter Mexican organizations
and politics, they have every
chance of success. Jennifer Rose Esq., a lifetime resident of
Morelia, was kind enough to put me
in contact with a website that deals with the Jews of Tijuana.
One current story is about the
election of David Saul Guakil, a Jew, to the Tijuana City
Council. He had previously served as
president of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce. Quoting Sr.
Guakil, “Although some
questioned how a young man like me could advance so quickly
in the ranks of the PRI, not once
did anyone comment adversely on the fact that I am Jewish.”
The same article, mentions a
former president of the Chamber of Commerce, Marcos Levy,
also a Jew. Thus it is obvious that
in Tijuana, a city of more than 2,000,000 people with a Jewish
population of approximately
2,000, Mexicans will judge a man by his abilities, not his
religion. […]
Attitudes are changing as the generation that lived through the
brief 1930's outbreak of
anti-Semitism in Mexico, brought on first by a depression and
then by Nazi sympathizers,

passes away. Jews seem more willing to enter into the
mainstream of Mexican life.
Ing. Alberto Varon M., the honorary Israeli Consul in
Guadalajara, Mexico's second
largest city, confirms this. He points out that Jews serve in high
positions in the Federal
Government. They are prominent members of the Chambers of
Commerce in Monterrey and
Guadalajara as well as Tijuana. Mexico and Israel have just
concluded a new trade pact.
Increased contact between Mexican and Israeli businessmen
bodes well for Jewish
Mexicans.
Today, most Mexican Jews can be classified as “upper middle
class.” Many are
professionals, even more are in business. They do not dominate
the Mexican industrial complex
nor its banking system, despite having founded it. All the
original banks were nationalized. Thus
the charge that “Jewish bankers” control the economy of a
country, a ploy used by anti-Semites
to stir up anger against Jews, cannot be used here.
There is a “café society” in Mexico City that has always
welcomed Jews, mostly from the

arts, fashion industries and entertainment world. A Jew, Jacobo
Zabludovsky, has been called
“Mexico's Walter Cronkite.” Frida Kahlo, flamboyant artist,
lover of Leon Trotsky, wife of Diego
Rivera, was a pillar of Mexico's “smart set,” until her death in
1954. Her father was a Hungarian
Jew and she never denied a Jewish heritage.
Still, for most Mexican Jews their social life centers on their
family and within Jewish
organizations. One such group, named Tribuna Israelita,
promotes close ties with Mexican
society and monitors anti-Semitism. By and large, groups that
promote Zionism and Israel
command most community support. Still, the Jewish tradition of
helping the less fortunate
leads the Jewish community to support Mexican charities. The
aforementioned Honorary
Consul of Israel gives a monthly donation to the Mexican Red
Cross.
The chief problem of Mexican Jewry today is intermarriage,
especially of young men
with Mexican women. This is largely because of the

unwillingness of Orthodox Judaism to agree
to conversions. They accept only children born of a Jewish
mother. Virtual Jerusalem, an
internet website at http://www.jerl.co.il/ that monitors Jewish
communities around the world,
estimates the rate of intermarriage in Mexico to be between 5%
and 10%. Most Jews in
Guadalajara dispute these figures, claiming they are too high.
[…]
There is some evidence that the total Jewish population in the
country is growing. In
1995 a study by the Hebrew University's Institute of
Contemporary Judaism concluded that the
Jewish population of the world is growing in only two
countries, Israel and Mexico. This is
plausible, since Orthodox Judaism encourages large families
and the majority of Jews in the
country are Orthodox. In Mexico City, it is estimated that over
80% of all Jewish children receive
all of their pre-college education in a Jewish educational
network. There are “Talmud Torahs”
that prepare boys for bar mitzvahs and girls for bas mitzvahs
connected with every synagogue.
There are several “Yeshivot” which prepare boys for the

Rabbinate and a Hebraic University
that turns out Jewish teachers for this educational system. There
are more than 16 Jewish
youth groups in the city. In the smaller cities, children are also
exposed to Judaism as a way of
life in a less elaborate Jewish school system. The Catholic
Church has long proclaimed, “Give me
a child for the first seven years of its life and it will be ours
forever.” Mexican Jews have
adopted their theory.
All cities with sizeable Jewish populations have community
centers that combine a place
of worship with a cultural center, a private school that offers
both religious and secular
education, a library, health club and more. Referred to as “the
club” it is the focal point of social
activities for the entire congregation. Mexican Jews see
themselves as “family,” even if not
actually related. Often a walled compound, open only to
members, these “clubs” minimize
minimize chances of inter-marriage. Non-Jewish Mexican social
life also revolves around the
family. Thus, to a certain extent both groups have similar
outlooks and attempt to exert control

over the social life of their children.
Questioned about their future, most but not all Jews in
Guadalajara are optimistic. All
agree that the main problem is intermarriage. Those who are
optimistic feel that the grip of the
Orthodox is loosening. Congregations are moving toward a
more liberal conservatism. In 1999,
Reformed Rabbis have visited Mexico City with an eye toward
starting a reformed
congregation. Someday, conversion in intermarriages may
become acceptable. This would
certainly ease the problem. Also, as the Mexican economy
improves, young Jews who sought
better opportunities in Mexico City or abroad can stay or return
“home.” Guadalajara is now
the home of high-tech industries, mostly branches of foreign
businesses. New opportunities for
well-educated people, including Mexican Jews, are opening up.
[…]
Speaking with a Jewish woman, she pointed out that the desire
to live a full Jewish life is
another reason young Jews prefer Mexico City to other places in

the country. “Kosher foods,
kosher restaurants are readily available there. This is not the
case in Guadalajara,” she said.
As the younger generation of Mexican Jews becomes the
majority, they will possibly
practice a more liberal Judaism than their forefathers. They may
become less religious, which
ironically would make it easier for them to live as Jews, no
longer attempting to meet all the
demands of Orthodox Judaism. If Reformed Judaism gained a
foothold in the country, it would
ease some of the problems of intermarriage. Also, Jews might
begin to accept “Converso”
groups who have of their own free will already returned to the
religion of their ancestors.
Again, it is the Orthodox establishment that prevents this.
It is also possible that there are still some latent fears of the
Catholic Church that have
caused Mexican Jews to maintain a low profile. In early March,
2000, Pope John Paul II laid
many of these fears to rest. He called anti-Semitism “a massive
sin against humanity” and the
Holocaust “an indelible stain on the history of the last century.”
He continued to seek

rapprochement between Catholics and Jews by visiting Israel
and again decrying anti-Semitism
at Yad Vashem, a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. He
also prayed at the Western
(Wailing) Wall, a remnant of Herod's Temple, destroyed by the
Romans in 70 A.D. It is the
holiest shrine of Judaism. Hopefully, these efforts will have an
impact on Catholic attitudes
toward Jews and vice-versa.
Actually, Jews have much in common with their fellow
Mexicans. Both groups are
sincerely religious and family oriented. Both were victims of
oppression and have suffered
tyranny. Even in modern times, they have felt discrimination,
Mexicans in the United States,
Jews in Russia. Descendants of survivors, bolstered by strong
religious convictions, they are
determined to survive. Ultimately, like all those who live in
Mexico, their future depends largely
on the ability of their homeland to make social and economic
progress.
They live with hope.

139. A Jewish Remnant in Central America
Corrie MacLaggan (b. c. 1981) published an article in the
Chicago Jewish
Community Online (2003), which described the problems facing
young Jews who
desired to preserve Jewish life in areas of Latin America where
Jews are an
especially tiny minority. What are the challenges facing these
young people, and
what are their responses to them? What are the religious reasons
behind their
desire “to preserve Jewish life”?
Young leaders in small Jewish communities throughout Latin
America feel a great
responsibility to preserve Jewish life in their hometowns—and
they're worried about the
future. These youths, together with young people from larger
communities like Buenos Aires,
came together in this town [Antigua] 30 miles outside
Guatemala City as part of the Ninth
Meeting of Leaders of Latin America and Caribbean Jewish
Institutions and Communities. […]
Of the nearly 600 lay leaders, rabbis, educators and volunteers
from 22 countries who
gathered to share ideas, about 100 were under age 30. At a time

when Latin America's
economic problems have caused many Jews to leave for Israel,
the United States and other
places, young people said they are concerned about maintaining
what's left of their Jewish
communities.
Daniel Cahen [sic], from San Salvador, El Salvador, where there
are about 60 Jewish
families, said he doesn't know if he'll find a Jewish woman to
marry. “I'm worried for myself and
my future,” said Cahen, 27. “I want my kids to be Jewish.” His
concerns echo those of young
people across the region.
Each Latin American country has distinct political and
economic circumstances—making
life for a Jew in Monterrey, Mexico, quite different than for one
in Havana, for example—the
small communities throughout the region face similar struggles.
Many of the young people
from small Jewish communities grew up in places where there
weren't always rabbis and where
it could be difficult to connect with other Jews or follow Jewish
traditions. Some of them are

working to change that.
Here in Guatemala, where there are about 250 Jewish families,
it was common for
young adults to disconnect from the community after graduating
from high school, youth
leaders said. Three years ago, a group of young people started
the Jewish University Students of
Guatemala. The group includes people between the ages of 18
and 30 who aren't necessarily
students. Joe Kaire, president of the group, spoke about his
organization during the conference.
“We didn't have a place to keep developing our Jewish
identity,” Kaire, 25, told the audience.
“Now we do, but it's a slow process.” It's hard to form a
community, he said, because so many
young Jews go to college outside Guatemala City—either
elsewhere in Guatemala or in the
United Sates. Those who stay don't necessarily join the student
group. That worries the group's
president-elect, Joseph Mejía.
“We need to unify the community of young people,” Mejía, 21,
said. “If not, we're going
to lose the customs.” It's not always easy to live a Jewish life in
Guatemala, Mejía and Kaire

agreed. “In Mexico, if you want to keep kosher you have several
restaurants to choose from. If
you don't keep kosher in Mexico, it's because you don't want
to,” Kaire said. “But here, it's very
difficult.” Even though Mexico has 50,000 Jews, the
overwhelming majority are in Mexico City.
Outside the capital, the communities are small and isolated—
more similar in some ways to
Guatemala City than Mexico City. Eduardo Berner is from
Monterrey, a city of more than 3
million people—including some 120 Jewish families—in
northern Mexico. He said that nearly
every Jewish person he knows, including his father and uncles,
has had to go to Mexico City to
find a Jewish spouse. He probably will do the same, said
Berner, a 23-year-old student.
Maintaining a community of young Jews in Monterrey is a
challenge because many young
people go to college in the United States, he said. “I don't know
what the solution is,” Berner
said. […]
According to Bertha Delgado Farin, 23, of Santiago de Cuba,

the challenge on her island
is how to revitalize a Jewish community that was dormant for
years. After the Cuban revolution
in 1959, about 90 percent of Cuba's Jews left for economic
reasons, and Jewish life in the
country further dwindled after the government began
discouraging religious practice. There still
is no permanent rabbi in Cuba, but Jewish life is thriving again.
The synagogue in Santiago de
Cuba, located more than 500 miles from Havana on the
southwestern part of the island, was
rededicated in 1995 after having been closed for 16 years.
Delgado Farin did not learn she was Jewish until she was 12.
She remembers her mother
lighting a small candle each Friday night, but she didn't know
why. Now she attends synagogue
on Fridays and studies Torah on Saturdays. She said she worries
about how to get those
younger than her involved in the community. Intermarriage also
is an issue, she noted, since
there are only about a dozen Jews between the ages of 13 and 30
in Santiago de Cuba. Though
her own husband is not Jewish, Delgado Farin says she is
determined to provide a Jewish

upbringing for their daughter, Sophia, 2. “We have a lot to learn
about Judaism,” she said. “But
every day I'm determined to learn more—and I feel extremely,
extremely proud to be Jewish.”
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PART XX Latino Jews, Afro-Latinos, and Amerindians .docx

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PART XX Latino Jews, Afro-Latinos, and Amerindians .docx