Jewish Footsteps Through Peruvian History: Part I

On May 8^th, 2025, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV and suddenly even those of us who were not Catholic saw various headlines about his twenty years of service in Peru. Though Peru is officially a Catholic country and as such did everything it initially could to keep us out, our tiny people the Jews made indelible marks in that country ever since they first arrived. You may not have met any Peruvian Jews before, but I assure you, we do in fact exist and we have been enjoying arguably the finest cuisine in the world for many decades before the Peruvian restaurant Central was recently named the number one restaurant on the planet. Over the next few blog posts, I welcome you to explore the land of the Andes and the Amazon with me. The history of the Jews in Peru is a fascinating one that takes us back to the 1500s. Jews in Peru number about 2,000 in the present day but at their peak numbered about 6,000. Somewhere in between, my grandparents and parents made their home there. This is the story of the Jews in Peru.

Before the Spanish conquered Peru, the heart of the Inca empire sat in Cuzco and encompassed large parts of modern-day Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. When the Inca emperor Huayna Capac died in 1527, his sons Atahualpa and Huascar, started a civil war between each other which significantly weekend the Inca empire and left it susceptible to defeat in 1532 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro who had come in search of gold and silver. Though historians suspect that Jews started arriving in Peru around this time in the 16^th century, the figures are impossible to decipher. Spanish royalty strongly suspected that the newly converted Catholics who set sail to Peru from Spain and Portugal were still practicing Judaism in secret so they set quotas on Conversos who could move to the colonies in 1543. The Peruvian Inquisition was then formally established in 1570 and continued until 1813. Whenever someone was suspected of practicing Judaism, the Inquisition would kidnap, torture, and after a forced confession eventually kill the accused individual in the public square. Even so, sources indicate that from 1590 to 1635 there might have been a secret synagogue in Lima led by Manuel Bautista Perez, originally from Spain by way of Portugal. Perez was murdered by the Inquisition by being burned at the stake in 1639 along with dozens of other people accused of being Jews. It is incumbent upon Pope Leo XIV, the first Peruvian American Pope, to acknowledge the Catholic Church’s historic role in fostering anti-Semitism through the Inquisition in Peru and imperative for him to issue a direct apology on behalf of the Catholic Church.

After the Inquisition formally ended in 1813 there was an influx of European Jews especially from Germany. The first openly Jewish family to live in Lima arrived on a boat from Germany, consisting of Louis Gosdinski and his wife Johana Rosenberg, with their sister Minna. In 1821 Peru declared its independence from Spain. European immigrants were sought after as a means of importing technological advances and human resources, and many projects over the next few decades financially encouraged these immigrants to come by supplying land, funds, and employment.  In that milieu, some European Jews immigrated to Peru including the famous Austrian pianist Henry Herz and violinist Miska Hauser. Many more came after 1848 due to economic turmoil in Europe at that time. They were overwhelmingly German but also included Jews from Poland, France, England, Australia, North America, and Russia and were made up of bankers, diamond dealers, jewelers, entrepreneurs, and industrial workers. In 1852 the first businesses owned by Jews were founded, including candy, cigar, and clothing shops.  Wladyslaw Kluger founded the Polytechnic School of Lima and in 1876, designed the irrigation of the Tacna Valley, the Chorrilos drinking water network, and built the Port of Arica near Chile. Other notable names include Segismundo and Fernando Jacobi who were sent to Lima by the Rothschilds of Europe and established the first international currency exchange business in Lima, and Paul Ascher who founded the Stock Exchange in Peru and was the first licensed stockbroker.  The Calmann family bought silver mines in Arica and other Jewish engineers and geologists developed and advanced gold mines in Huancavelica.

By 1857, since there was now a significant number of Jews who came from different countries of origin, people started founding social clubs like “El Club Ingles” and “El Club Aleman” so they could spend time with people who spoke their native language. Many Jews were involved in horse racing and in 1864 helped found the elite Jockey Club which still exists today. It is important to note that several Jews became Peruvian heroes during the war between Peru and Chile in 1879-1884. Various Jews who had become financially successful donated significant amount of capital to the Peruvian government to fund their military, such as the Villiers and the Jacobis and ended up in complete financial ruin as a result. Gustavo Bradt, who owned a large estate or plantation, was another such financier and Captain Enrique Oppenheimer was only twenty-two years old when he valiantly fought in the army and was later mortally wounded.

In 1870, when conflicting sources indicate there were about 120-300 Jews in total in all of Peru, the first Jewish organization in Peru was founded that same year by the German immigrants and was called the Sociedad Hebrea de Beneficencia (the Hebrew Charitable Society), by Natazzius Hurwitz, Jacobo Brillman, Paul Ascher, and David Señor de Castro. They worked to establish a charitable fund for poor Jews, propagate Jewish education among the youth, visit every sick Jew whether they were a member or not, establish a Chevra Kadisha with an on-call schedule to accompany every Jew that died in Lima, and a registry to annotate marriages and deaths. In 1868 a Yellow Fever outbreak killed 10 Jews which is when discussions began regarding starting a Jewish cemetery. Though Peru was officially a Catholic country, they had allowed the British Protestants to make their own cemetery in 1833, which is where Jews were initially buried. In 1875 the American engineer and train builder Enrique Meiggs had the United States Embassy formally request permission from the Peruvian authorities to allow a Jewish cemetery. He himself sought to donate a large swath of his property to the Jewish community for the purpose of establishing the Jewish cemetery, yet the community refused to accept it as a donation, reminiscent of the story of Abraham in the Torah. Instead, the Sociedad Hebrea de Beneficencia bought it at a radically low price of one cent per square yard for a grand total of less than 200 Peruvian Soles and became the 1^st Jewish cemetery built in Latin America, called “Cementerio Israelita de Baquijano”. The first Jewish woman buried in this cemetery was Mina Rosemberg.

In 1885 the first Sefer Torah was brought to Peru, donated by Siegsmundo Jacobi. In the 1880s and 1890s, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services were conducted in Masonic Lodges that were rented out specifically for the High Holy Days and regular services were conducted in private homes like that of Moises Moses and the home and clinic of the dentist Dr. David Señor de Castro, hailing originally from the Dutch colony of Saint Thomas, who also acted as Mohel and Rabbi. A letter dated 1905 details how the community bought Machzorim from Buenos Aires that were written in Hebrew and Spanish for the holidays.

Over time, the German Jewish organization Sociedad Hebrea de Beneficencia became known as Sociedad de Beneficencia Israelita 1870, and they began praying at the home that Leopoldo Weil rented. In 1938 the location officially became a synagogue by the name of Asociacion Judia de Beneficencia y Culto 1870, otherwise also known simply as “1870”, with Leopoldo Weil acting as the rabbi. The rented location was successfully bought in 1948, undergoing a complete demolition and reconstruction in the year 2000 in the same original location, a street by the name of Juan Fanning 320 in the neighborhood of Miraflores, Lima. “1870” is one of four active synagogues in Peru until today and is considered traditionally conservative. The rabbi of congregation “1870” in 1985 was Guillermo Bronstein originally of Argentina; the first couple he married were my parents Marcos Chertman and Raquel Feldman.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in this Jewish Peruvian saga.

Works Cited

1. Comunidad Judía del Perú. Hasbará: Una tarea de todos. El Boletín, año 5, no. 193, 11 Mar. 2016 / 1 Adar II 5776. Publicación oficial de la Comunidad Judía del Perú, https://www.calameo.com/read/002214719b92237678be3.
2. “Community in Peru.” World Jewish Congress, https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/PE. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
3. Echenberg, Eva Neisser, and Judy Sklar Rasminsky. Walter’s Welcome: The Intimate Story of a German-Jewish Family’s Flight from the Nazis to Peru. Skyhorse Publishing, 2018.
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11. Sacks, Andrew. “Why Are Jews Stuck in the Amazon?” The Times of Israel, 1 Sept. 2020, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-are-jews-stuck-in-the-amazon/.
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13. “Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire.” Quechuas Expeditions, https://www.quechuasexpeditions.com/spanish-conquest-of-the-inca-empire/. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
14. Tenorio, Rich. “Amazonian Jews Thrive in the Depths of the Rainforest.” The Times of Israel, 1 Dec. 2016, https://www.timesofisrael.com/amazonian-jews-thrive-in-the-depths-of-the-rainforest/.
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16. Trahtemberg Siederer, León. “La Inmigración Judía al Perú: 1848–1948.” Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2001.
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18. Turismo Judío. Sinagoga 1870 – Asoc. de Beficencia y Culto. TurismoJudaico.com, https://es.turismojudaico.com/contenido/199/Sinagoga-1870—Asoc.-de-Beficencia-y-Culto. Accessed 21 Apr. 2025.
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