Adam Serwer: This is pretty interesting, I knew next to nothing about Mexico’s Jewish community www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/w...

This is pretty interesting, I knew next to nothing about Mexico’s Jewish community www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/w...

My aunt’s family are Mexican Jews who were on one of the early boats fleeing the Holocaust that got denied harbor in NY.

A large portion of Ashkenazi Mexican Jews are descendants of European immigrants who tried to evade the U.S. quotas in the 1920s. They traveled to Mexico instead, where restrictions were more lax, and then tried to cross the border illegally. Many did, but many more remained in Mexico permanently.

My Greenberg side has cousins named Grinberg in Mexico City -- any way out of Lithuania in 1890.

Interesting, I have cousins named Greenburg in Tijuana (originally from Lazaro Cardenas).

Learned about this from a Mexican Jew named Luis who made aliyah & opened a kosher taqueria just outside the Old City in Jerusalem! It was so good we ate there twice. And he was happy to have customers who pronounced our orders correctly. 🤣 www.tacosluis-il.com

www.tacosluis-il.com

Food personality Pati Jinich is a proud Mexican Jew - I wish she would write a Mexican Jewish cookbook (her family is Ashkenazi & the few Jewish recipes she demo'd on her PBS series reflect that). I met a few Jewish Mexicans during visits to DF; they were in the jewelry trade.

One of the greatest historians of Mexico was Jewish, Friedrich Katz. He got there when he was 13, refugee from the Nazis.

me neither! A chunk of my mom's family came up to Texas through Mexico, some stayed -- it was easier to enter the US that way than through Ellis Island at the time.

It's wild. When they came up to New Mexico they became crypto-jews www.npr.org/sections/cod...

'Crypto-Jews' In The Southwest Find Faith In A Shrouded Legacywww.npr.org Spain expelled its Jews in the 15th century, and some believe these conversos sought refuge from the Inquisition in what is now a Texas border region. Had one woman's family been Jewish all along?

There are a lot of Sephardic Jewish people in Argentina for similar reasons. Escaping persecution from Spain and going to Spanish speaking countries.

I’m a Sephardic Cajun, and one of my uncles found distant relatives in Mexico

Sizeable crypto-Jewish population in northern New Mexico too, IIRC

One of my favorite facts is that Mexican Jews invented flour tortillas because they weren't sure if corn was kosher (it was a grey area because in Europe corn was pig food).

spain already had flat bread before colonization and flour tortillas were made with lard

I lived a while in Condesa, one of the neighborhoods in Mexico City where Jews settled. Lots of good material here! www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-lit...

Jewish Neighborhoods: Mexico City | Yiddish Book Centerwww.yiddishbookcenter.org Stories of Jewish life in Mexico City, from Our Wexler Oral History Project Collection

Most of the Latin American professors where I worked were grandchildren or great-grandchildren of European Jews or Middle Eastern Christians who had immigrated to South America.

The newly-elected president of Mexico is Jewish - and a woman. The US government is still so backward.

It is in fact a rich history

Same, still don’t. @dwdavison.bsky.social and @dbessner.bsky.social piqued my interest on it with one of the newer @amprestigepod.bsky.social Mexican election episodes. Definitely need to read more after seeing this.

There are more than one community. It's like saying the New York City Jewish community. Which one of all of them?

Came across this Reddit comment that posited that Sheinbaum might have had some crypto-Jewish presidential predecessors. I’ve a Mexican-American friend who thinks his family were Marranos, it’s interesting history. www.reddit.com/r/pics/comme...

I thought bit more on after @davidklion.bsky.social on bret family tree newrepublic.com/article/1551...

The Conscience of Bret Stephensnewrepublic.com How one columnist’s wild family history explains an increasingly isolated school of conservatism

JFL it’s been five years of this (and all the time before. Oh, that’s jewish fucking lewis, I use that sometimes because of my daughter)

My friend studies this and wrote a book about it! www-sup.stanford.edu/books/title/...

Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora - Devi Mayswww-sup.stanford.edu Forging Ties, Forging Passports is a history of migration and nation-building from the vantage point of those who lived between states. Devi Mays traces the histories of Ottoman Sephardi Jews who emig...

I knew one in College.

Where do you think tacos al pastor came from

lebanese immigrants

As an offshoot of the aptly named Tacos Arabes

Right!

As al pastor is usually pork, not of Jewish origin

I'm so glad you posted this. The comments in the thread are fascinating.

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