The history of the Jews in Uruguay (Spanish: judeouruguayos) dates back to the colonial empire. The most important influx of Jewish population occurred during the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, mainly during World War II.
With an estimated 16,600 Jews, according to the American Jewish Year Book 2019, Uruguay is home to the fifth-largest Jewish community in Latin America, and the second-largest as a proportion of the total population after Argentina.[2] The country's community is mainly composed of Ashkenazim.[3]
History
The arrival of Jews to the Banda Oriental goes back to the 16th century, when conversos began settling there. The Spanish Inquisition was not a significant force in the territory, and the first recorded Jewish settlement there was in the 1770s. When the Inquisition ended in 1813, it paved the way for Jews being more accepted in Uruguay throughout the 19th century.
Significant Jewish immigration began in the late 19th century, when Jews from neighboring Brazil and Argentina emigrated to Uruguay.[4] Most of them were Sephardim, followed by Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, and Italkim. The largest Jewish population was in Montevideo, which had 150 Jews in 1909 and the first recorded minyan happened in 1912.[5] The Villa Muñoz neighbourhood received a large amount of the Jewish immigration that came to Uruguay, which led it to become the Jewish quarter of the capital.[6] Jewish schools and the first synagogue were established there in 1917 by a small Ashkenazi community.[7]
In 1915, 30 Jewish families from Belarus and Bessarabia settled in the rural area of the Paysandú Department and established an agricultural settlement, Colonia 19 de Abril.[8] The majority of Jewish immigration to Uruguay took place in the 1920s and 1930s. A large percentage of Jewish immigrants during this period were German Jews and Italian Jews.[9]
Uruguayan Jews initially made a living in small retail trade and peddling, with some becoming craftsmen and artisans.[11] In time, they moved up the economic scale, and many became the owners of large stores or medium-sized businesses. Following World War II, Jews increased their representation in the professional world and became primarily middle-class, particularly as many Uruguayan Jews were by then second or third-generation Uruguayans. Their economic advancement was aided by the creation of Jewish loan and assistance funds, which evolved into Jewish banks.[12]
Uruguay, which had supported the creation of a Jewish homeland during the 1920 San Remo conference, was one of the first nations to recognize Israel, and the first Latin American country to do so.[14] It was the first Latin American country and fourth country overall in which Israel established a diplomatic mission. It was also one of the few nations to support Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and oppose internationalization of the city.[15] Its diplomatic mission in Jerusalem was upgraded to the status of an embassy in 1958, but subsequently moved to Tel Aviv after Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem.[16]
In 1952 the American Jewish Year Book estimated that Uruguay had about 40,000 Jews. However, in 1960 it was estimated at 50,000, the time in history when there were more Jews in the country.[17] The community experienced a serious decline in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of emigration.[18] By the mid-1990s, there were no Jews in the upper echelons or military, and little Jewish representation in the legislature.
Currently, 20,000-25,000 Jews live in Uruguay, with 95% residing in Montevideo.[19] Throughout the country, there are prominent organized communities in Punta del Este and Paysandú.[20] As of 2003, there were 20 synagogues, but only six of them held weekly Shabbat services, and one functioned every day.[citation needed]
In 2017, a Holocaust memorial in Montevideo was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, with phrases such as "The Holocaust of the Jewish people is the biggest lie in history" and “Gas chambers were a fraud.”[21][22][23] This act of vandalism followed a renovation of the memorial which attempted to clean up the monument from previous acts of antisemitic vandalization.[24]
The history of the Jews in Latin America began with conversos who joined the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the continents. The Alhambra Decree of 1492 led to the mass conversion of Spain's Jews to Catholicism and the expulsion of those who refused to do so. However, the vast majority of conversos never made it to the New World and remained in Spain slowly assimilating to the dominant Catholic culture. This was due to the requirement by Spain's Blood Statutes to provide written documentation of Old Christian lineage to travel to the New World. However, the first Jews came with the first expedition of Christopher Columbus, including Rodrigo de Triana and Luis De Torres.
The history of the Jews in Argentina goes back to the early sixteenth century, following the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution immigrated with explorers and colonists to settle in what is now Argentina, in spite of being forbidden from travelling to the American colonies. In addition, many of the Portuguese traders in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata were Jewish. An organized Jewish community, however, did not develop until after Argentina gained independence from Spain in 1816. By mid-century, Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe, fleeing the social and economic disruptions of revolutions, began to settle in Argentina. Argentines of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic heritage have left their mark on all aspects of Argentine culture, including in areas such as cuisine.
The history of the Jews in Mexico began in 1519 with the arrival of Conversos, often called Marranos or "Crypto-Jews", referring to those Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism and that then became subject to the Spanish Inquisition.
The Sephardic Jews that were exiled from Spain and the Mediterranean area in 1492 and 1497, coupled with other migrations dating from the 1700s and during World War II contributed to Dominican ancestry.
Israel–Uruguay relations are foreign relations between Israel and Uruguay. Uruguay was the first South American country and the fourth in the world to recognize Israel.
Reus al Norte is a historic housing area in the Villa Muñoz neighborhood of Montevideo, Uruguay. Built in the late 1880s and spread over in four urban blocks, it is the core of the city's Jewish quarter, and is known for its pastel-coloured houses.
Relations between Argentina and Israel began shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, with the countries establishing diplomatic relations on 31 May 1949.
The history of the Jews in Bolivia goes back to the colonial period of Bolivia in the 16th century. In the 19th century, Jewish merchants came to Bolivia, most of them taking local women as wives and founding families that merged into the mainstream Catholic society. This was often the case in the eastern regions of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando, where these merchants came either from Brazil or Argentina.
The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue, also the Porto Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 340 Guerra Junqueiro Street, in the civil parish of Lordelo do Ouro e Massarelos, the municipality of Porto, in the northern region of Portugal.
Semanario Hebreo is a Spanish-language Jewish weekly newspaper published in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The Memorial to the Holocaust of the Jewish People is an outdoor memorial dedicated to victims of the Holocaust.
Chil (Enrique) Meyer Rajchman a.k.a. Henryk Reichman, nom de guerre Henryk Ruminowski was one of about 70 Jewish prisoners who survived the Holocaust after participating in the August 2, 1943, revolt at the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland. He reached Warsaw, where he participated in the resistance in the city, before it was captured by the Soviet Union.
The Jewish Archive was the name given to a collection of documents compiled by the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain during the Second World War. In accordance with instructions of the Directorate of General Security the provincial governors of Spain assembled records of all Jews who lived in Spain, whether or not they were Spanish. Jorge Martínez Reverte has suggested that the resulting list, which recorded 6,000 Jews living in Spain, was handed to Heinrich Himmler's SS in 1941 and was included in Adolf Eichmann's Jewish Population Census, tabled at the Wannsee Conference, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, in January 1942.
Teresa Porzecanski is an Uruguayan anthropologist, professor and writer.
The Comité Central Israelita del Uruguay is the umbrella and central organization of Uruguay's Jewish community. Established in 1940 it gathers 29 Jewish Zionist institutions, serving as the community's political representative in official events and conducts all contact with authorities.
The Tiféret Israel Synagogue attack was an attack on Caracas, Venezuela's oldest synagogue that took place on the night of 31 January 2009, during the shabbat. The attack occurred amid a rise in tensions prompted by the 2008–2009 Gaza War, after Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Israel and Israel responded by expelling Venezuelan officials from the country.
The Monument to the Victims of the Holocaust is a monument in Madrid, Spain, in memory of the victims of the Holocaust during World War II. It is located in the Three Cultures Garden in Juan Carlos I Park. Inaugurated in 2007, the monument was the first Holocaust memorial in Spain.
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