List of Mexican Jews

Mexico has had a Jewish population since the early Colonial Era. However, these early individuals could not openly worship as they were persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition for practicing Judaism. Independent Mexico eventually adopted freedom of religion and began receiving Jewish immigrants, many of them refugees. The book Estudio histórico de la migración judía a México 1900-1950 has records of almost 18,300 who emigrated to Mexico between 1900 and 1950. Most (7,023) were Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestors had settled in Eastern Europe, mainly Poland. A further 2,640 Jews arrived from either Spain or the Ottoman Empire and 1,619 came from Cuba and the United States.

The 2010 Census counted 67,476 individuals professing Judaism,[1] most of whom live in Mexico City.[1]

The following is a list of notable past and present Mexican Jews (not all with both parents Jewish, nor all practising Judaism), arranged by their main field of activity:

Academia

• Adina Cemet, Ph.D., sociologist, author, essayist.[2][3][4][5]
• Julio Frenk, president of the University of Miami, former Secretary of Health and dean of the Harvard School of Public Health[6]
• Enrique Krauze, public intellectual, historian, essayist, critic, producer, and publisher
• Helen Kleinbort Krauze, historian, mother of Enrique Krauze[7]
• Arturo Warman, anthropologist, cabinet member of Salinas and Zedillo[8]

Architecture

• Sara Topelson de Grinberg, architect
• Abraham Zabludovsky, architect
• Alejandro Zohn, architect, Holocaust survivor

Arts

Classical music

• Daniel Catán, composer[9]
• Henryk Szeryng, violinist[10]

Photography

• Senya Fleshin, photographer and anarchist
• Mariana Yampolsky, photographer

Visual arts

• Maurice Ascalon, sculptor
• Arnold Belkin, painter, born in Canada[11]
• Olga Costa, painter
• Luis Filcer, Expressionist painter
• Pedro Friedeberg, painter[12]
• Mathias Goeritz, painter, sculptor, born in Germany[13]
• Vlady Kibalchich Russakov, painter
• Tosia Malamud, sculptor
• Leonardo Nierman, painter, sculptor
• Wolfgang Paalen, painter, sculptor and art philosopher
• Fanny Rabel, painter, member of Los Fridos artistic group.
• Diego Rivera, painter, muralist (Atheist)
• José Sacal, sculptor[14][15]

Business

• Carlos Alazraki, advertising executive
• Daniel Lubetzky, entrepreneur, author
• Franz Mayer, financier, photographer, collector, and the founder of the Franz Mayer Museum
• Moisés Saba, businessman; board member of various companies
• Rafael Sacal Micha, businessman, entrepreneur. Previoiusly the owner of Casa Aries Mexico, leather goods. Now owns the largest and most popular Talavera (pottery) company in the world, Uriarte Talavera. Cousin of Adela Micha.
• Mauricio Umansky, celebrity real estate agent, husband of Kyle Richards
• Sergio Zyman, marketing executive

Entertainment

Film and television

• Brigitte Alexander, actress, director, author and translator for UNESCO
• Susana Alexander, actress
• Erick Elias, actor
• Irán Eory, actress, model
• Pati Jinich, TV chef, cookbook author
• Mauricio Kleiff, screenwriter
• María Eugenia Llamas, actress
• Mariana Levy, actress
• Emmanuel Lubezki, cinematographer, winner of three Ariel Awards for Best Cinematography (1992, 1993, 1994) and 3 Oscars in the category (2013-15)[16]
• Miroslava, actress
• Norma Mora, actress
• David Ostrosky, actor
• Alfredo Ripstein, film producer
• Arturo Ripstein, filmmaker, screenwriter, producer
• Claudia Salinas, model, actress
• Alexander Salkind, producer.
• Ilya Salkind, producer.
• Diego Schoening, singer, actor and television host
• Alan Tacher, television host
• Ari Telch, actor
• Gregorio Walerstein, film producer and screenwriter

Music

• Alix Bauer, singer, founding member of Timbiriche
• Ari Borovoy, songwriter, founding member of the Latin pop group OV7
• Adan Jodorowsky, musician, singer, and actor
• Mark Tacher, musician, vocalist, guitarist, and television host

Journalism

• Shanik Berman, journalist
• David Faitelson, sports journalist
• Giselle Fernández, television journalist
• Adela Micha, TV and radio journalist
• Jacobo Zabludovsky Kraveski, TV journalist[17]

Literature

• Chloe Aridjis, novelist[18]
• Sabina Berman, author, playwright, screenwriter
• Anita Brenner, writer, historian[19]
• Mariana Frenk-Westheim, prose writer, Hispanist, translator
• Margo Glantz, writer and critic[20]* a prose writer who was author of the New York Times bestseller The Empress.
• Bárbara Jacobs, author, poet, essayist, translator
• Myriam Moscona, author, journalist, poet and Ladino translator[21]
• Moises Salinas author and psychologist[22]
• Sara Sefchovich, writer[20]
• Esther Seligson, writer, poet, translator, and historian
• Ilan Stavans, literary critic[23]

Science

Biology

• Jerzy Rzedowski, botanist, plant geographer, researcher, Holocaust survivor

• Youri Smets, researcher, taster of all possible non-kosher foods.

Mathematics

• Samuel Gitler Hammer, mathematician[24]

Medicine

• George Rosenkranz, pioneering scientist in the field of steroid chemistry; Contract bridge Grand Life Master
• Pablo Rudomín Zevnovaty, neuroscientist
• Nora Volkow, psychiatrist; current director of the United States' National Institute on Drug Abuse

Physics

• Jacob Bekenstein, physicist[25]
• Deborah Berebichez, physicist
• Gloria Koenigsberger, physicist[26]
• Marcos Moshinsky, awarded physicist, UNAM cathedratic, Ukrainian-born[27]

Politics

• Gabriela Brimmer, writer and activist for persons with disabilities
• Luis de Carabajal y Cueva, adventurer, slave-trader, Governor of Nuevo León
  • Francisca Nuñez de Carabajal, Marrana, sister of Luis de Carabajal, executed along with family members for practicing Judaism
• Luis de Carabajal the younger, Governor of Nuevo León, author
• Francisco de Carvajal, founder of the New Kingdom of León.
• David Goldbaum, surveyor and politician of Baja California
• Jorge Castañeda Gutman, politician and academic who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs; also known for losing a Supreme Court ruling that would have allowed him to run as an Independent in the 2006 Presidential race
• Vicente Lombardo Toledano, labor leader
• Diego de Montemayor, founder of Monterrey[28][29]
• Juan de Oñate, Governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, descendant of Conversos
• Adela Cojab, Israel activist, author
• Andrés Roemer, diplomat, author
• Eliezer Ronen, Israeli politician
• Claudia Sheinbaum, Mayor of Mexico City
• Binyamin Temkin, Israeli politician
• José Woldenberg, political scientist and sociologist

Religion

• Jacob Avigdor, Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi Jewish community, author, Holocaust survivor
• Yosef Dayan, rabbi and the author of several books in Hebrew, Spanish and Italian
• Moisés Kaiman, rabbi from Monterrey

Sports

• Ilana Berger, tennis player
• Wolf Ruvinskis, wrestler
• Alberto Menasci, goalkeeper

See also

• List of Latin American Jews
• List of Mexicans
• List of Jews

References

1. "Panorama de las religiones en México 2010" (PDF) (in Spanish). INEGI. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2015. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
2. http://teatrnn.pl/lexicon/articles/adina-cimet-english/
3. https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume5/Issue1-2/Schuster2.html
4. Cimet, Adina (1995). "Jews as a Minority in Mexico". Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Latino-Américaines et Caraïbes. 20 (39/40): 215–225. doi:10.1080/08263663.1995.10816726. JSTOR 41799921.
5. https://diariojudio.com/autor/acimet/
6. "Julio Frenk and the University of Miami: Family History". YouTube. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
7. "Mexican Cartoon Character at Center of Dispute : NPR". npr.org. Retrieved 3 August 2010. I come from a Jewish family. My parents came from Poland to Mexico.
8. "Infancia y juventud - Arturo Warman" [Children and Youth - Arturo Warman]. catedrawarman.org (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
9. Opera Japonica/Daniel Catán Archived 2006-10-02 at the Wayback Machine "I was born of Jewish parents in Mexico City."
10. Jewish Violinists
11. Ugalde Gómez Nadia. Arnold Belkin; la imágen como metáfora. México, 1999.
12. "Aldo Castillo Gallery". Archived from the original on June 23, 2006. Pedro Friedeberg was born in Florence, Italy in 1936 to German-Jewish parents
13. http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/Olympika/Olympika_1998/olympika0701g.pdf Olympika
14. "José Sacal, escultor". Diario Judío: Diario de la Vida Judía en México y el Mundo (in Spanish). 2013-08-16. Retrieved 2018-06-14.
15. "Agradece Eilat al escultor judío mexicano José Sacal por obra donada". Enlace Judío (in Spanish). 2018-03-08. Retrieved 2018-06-14.
16. Bloom, Nate (2007-02-22). "Jewish Standard Hollywood's big night". Jewish Standard. Archived from the original on 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
17. 100 year of Jewish immigration Archived 2005-12-10 at the Wayback Machine "The exhibit has photos of many members of the community who have become well known for their artistic or cultural contributions. Wolf Ruvinskis was a famous wrestler in the 1950s.... Jacobo Zabludovsky is a household name, having been a prominent news anchor for decades both in television and radio."
18. http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/interview-chloe-aridjis
19. Kerstin Jones. "Anita Brenner". ic.arizona.edu. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
20. Invenciones multitudinarias: escritoras judíomexicanas contemporáneas Archived 2006-04-26 at the Wayback Machine "Guadalupe Cortina’s study of Mexican Jewish women writers features general introductions to four writers and textural analyses of their work. The writers are Margo Glantz, Ethel Krauze, Sara Levi Calderón, and, more briefly discussed than the previous three, Sara Sefchovich. "
21. Where Words Like Monarchs Fly Archived 2005-11-20 at the Wayback Machine "Myriam Moscona is the daughter of Sephardic parents who came to Mexico from Bulgaria."
22. ".:: Welcome To The Jewish Ledger ::". jewishledger.com. Archived from the original on 31 May 2011. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
23. Interview: Ilan Stavans "born in Mexico in 1961 to an Eastern European Jewish family"
24. Agencias (10 September 2014). "Dr. Samuel Gitler Z"L, Multigalardonado matemático miembro del Colegio Nacional". Diario Judío (in Spanish).
25. Jewish Physicists
26. Gloria Koenigsberger
27. "Marcos Moshinsky :: Background". Archived from the original on March 21, 2006. Moshinsky belongs to a family of Jewish emigrants from the Ukraine ... He has lived in Mexico, where he received his entire elementary and higher education and has spent almost all his professional life, from the age of three
28. Hordes, Stanley M. To the ends of the earth: A history of the crypto-Jews in New Mexico
29. Farias, George. The Farias chronicles: a history and genealogy of a Portuguese/Spanish family.

External links

• Judíos Destacados en México, articles on notable Mexican Jews by Diario Judio