Mexican Jewish history
January 18th, 2010
Yes, there are Jews in Mexico. Supposedly, the first arrived among the Spanish conquerors, men who sailed with Cortés to escape the Inquisition. Today, in Mexico City there are fewer than forty thousand, which makes them a tiny minority in a city of twenty million people (ninety percent of whom declare themselves Catholic).
They are often the object of fascination of Catholic Mexicans. They arrived in greatest numbers in the first decades of the 20th century, principally immigrants from Central Europe, Lebanon, Greece and Syria. They tended to show up penniless, and began selling things on the streets of the centro histórico, soon graduating to shopkeepers and small-business proprietors. Today, most are professionals.
For over a dozen years, Monica Unikel-Fasja (pictured above) has given guided tours of the Jewish history of the centro. She points out, enters, and tells the stories of the buildings that housed the synagogues, jewelry, clothing and textile stores, community centers and gymnasiums of Mexico’s early 20th-century Jewish communities.
You can find out more about Monica’s tours by visiting her website (www.jewishtours.com.mx) or by emailing her directly at guidtour@prodigy.net.mx.
Labels: Mexico City
13 Responses to “Mexican Jewish history”
By Marcia Biederman on Jan 18, 2010
Thanks for the post, but are the Jews in Mexico today just objects of fascination or also targets of anti-Semitism? Watching the news about Haiti, I’m reminded of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City — which I wrote about for an alternative weekly newspaper — and how the media blamed Mexican Jews for the tragedy. Many people had died in the collapse of garment factories, and the headlines screamed, “Jews Save Machinery, Allow Workers to Die.” I criticized Elena Poniatowska for allowing expression of such sentiments, without a whiff of criticism, in her book about the earthquake “Nada Nadie.” For a summary of my criticism of Poniatowska see the following summary, which appeared on a social science Listserv: http://bit.ly/6lVccK
By Jorge Pedro on Jan 18, 2010
¡estupendo post! los tours de mónica fabulosos. saludos.
By Gary Denness on Jan 18, 2010
I don’t hear many positive things about the Jews in Mexico City. I’m not sure I would call it out and out anti-semitism in the sense I would usually associate the phrase though. Words such as ‘arrogant’, ‘up themselves’, think they’re better than everyone else’ etc etc. Rather than words than suggest any wishes of harm or misfortune.
This is what I hear, by the way, not what I think. I’ve never knowingly spoken to a Jew in Mexico City.
By Don Cuevas on Jan 19, 2010
Interesting. There’s a discussion thread on Mexconnect.com about anti-semitism in Mexico.
http://tinyurl.com/yfjcblv
Unfortunately, it digressed into a discussion of Kosher style deli food.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
By Kevin on Jan 19, 2010
Jews may make up a very tiny portion of Mexico City’s population, but you wouldn’t know it walking around the “upper side” of exclusive Polanco. I often see them on the promenade on Horacio – usually fathers and sons – strolling along in dark suits and black yarmulkes.
By Judy on Jan 19, 2010
Happy to see my friend Monica here. Her tours and her knowledge of the amazing history of the community is indeed fabulous. As per antisemitism in Mexico, let me put it this way. Where there is a Jew, there’s bound to be an antisemite. Ignorance, and the copious help of the Catholic Church (and if not them, then the extreme left) has helped give Mexicans the catalog of stereotypes that Jews have to deal with all over the world. Having said this, Mexico is not a particularly antisemitic country, and Mexicans are in general a very tolerant, generous people (albeit full of prejudices, not only against Jews, but gays and blacks, and nacos, you name it).
Many of them, however think Jews are greedy and every Jew is rich and we all have big schnozzes and they were calling each other on the eve of 9/11 to save themselves from the falling towers. This last sentiment was actually informed to me by a Mexican university student a week after the attacks. What’s a Jew to do?
Still, there have never been violent attacks against the Jewish community in Mexico like there have been in places like Turkey, Argentina, or France.
Let’s hope it stays that way.
By Carol Wheeler on Jan 19, 2010
Just to stick up for the “extreme left,” many of whom (like me) are Jewish–I think we attack (verbally) the Israeli government, not Jews in general, or at all, really. I hope you’ll agree that it’s kind of important to keep those two things separate.
By admin on Jan 19, 2010
For the record, in Mexico City, even in supposedly polite and educated society, I have heard many anti-Semitic remarks.
Not against the Israeli government. Against Jews. Judy is absolutely right when she says that in Mexico City it was widely accepted among many that, previous to 9/11, some kind of mysterious memo had gone out warning all the Jews who worked in the World Trade Center not to show up that day.
Luckily, in Mexico the manifestations are merely verbal.
For a previous post about extreme Mexican anti-Semitism, see the following:
http://davidlida.com/?s=lagunazi
By cardie on Jan 19, 2010
Both the factories I buy my product from are owned by Jewish families of European origin. I am going to ask their history next time I visit.
Cardie@ oilcloth.com
By Judy on Jan 19, 2010
As they say in Mexico, al que le quede el saco, que se lo ponga.
An example of lefty antisemitism in the Mexican media:
Back in the first Iraq war, when Iraq was sending SCUD missiles to Tel Aviv, in the newspaper La Jornada, which I used to write for by the way, there was an article by some such Mexican “intellectual” lefty that mentioned the Jewish blood of Jacobo Zabludovsky, the newscaster and also mentioned Jewish tanks, as if the tanks had been circumsized and bar-mitzvahed and read the Bible every morning.
I know the difference between disagreeing with the policies of the State of Israel and hating Israel and the Jews. Many leftists conflate both.
By Tom on Jan 19, 2010
If you want to see the Jewish people of Mexico City, just drive around Tecamachalco on a Saturday evening.
By Gemma on Jan 20, 2010
I think I have read about Monica’s tours in Chilango. In any event, sign me up!
In 2004, I lived on Cofre del Perote street in Lomas de Chapultepec, in a concrete fortress of an apartment building. To escape the claustrophobia of this place, I used to walk through the hills a lot, passing an Orthodox synagogue, the Costa Rican embassy, and — once I got down the hill — superscary security guards armed to the teeth on every street corner.
On a few occasions, I spotted clusters of parked limousines surrounded by said guards as the vehicles’ occupants got out and entered their destination. I figured they were diplomats going into the embassy. But no — this was Shabbat, and men exclusively were attending services. Further down the narrow sidewalk on Palmas, upon passing a young man in kipah and his female companion, I attempted a friendly “shabbat shalom” to defray my own nerves in the presence of so much heavy artillery. In response, the couple gave me looks both startled and fearful.
Perhaps that year was a time of intense kidnapping (as there were even guards chockablock with submachine guns lining the entrance to Palacio de Hierro at Perisur Mall), but I alternated my time in Lomas with stays at the Hotel Bamer, just to get away from the fear and guns. This was my personal vignette of what it means to be the Jewish elite in Mexico City.
Saludos a todos desde California,
Gemma
By Alan Grabinsky on Jan 23, 2010
Hi everyone,
Check out this interesting article in JTA about jews in Mexico City:
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/05/1008304/in-mexico-city-insular-community-begins-to-reach-out
Saludos,
Alan