A blending of Jewish and Hispanic Cultures

“There are between 38,000 and 40,000 Jews in Mexico, according to Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Latino and Latin American Institute of the American Jewish Committee in Washington D.C. Half are Ashkenazi and half are Sephardi — or from Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East. Jews make up a tiny portion of the country’s general population of 107 million.

Jews have lived in Mexico since the 1500s, but, like their cousins living in other Spanish countries, most were killed, forced to convert “or just disappeared” during the Spanish Inquisition, Siegel Vann said. A second wave of Jews moved to Mexico at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, fleeing the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe. Most settled in Mexico City.”

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