INCA JEWS

The 'Inca Jews' are a small community of several hundred converts to Judaism, originating in Peru. The Inca Jews are not of Jewish heritage. Most Inca Jews now live in Israel.

Contents

History

References

History

The community was founded in 1966 by an Inca man named Villanueva, who faced great exclusion and prejudice in his native city of Trujillo for his decision to convert from the Catholic Church to Judaism. Villanueva visited Spain for a time, learning from the local Sephardic community, and upon his return, was able to convince around 500 formerly Catholic Incas in Trujillo to convert. The new community tried to find refuge with the small Ashkenazic community in Lima (mostly Hungarian and Polish refugees from World War II), but were not received well[2]. In 1985, Villanueva made contact with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who sent Rabbi Myron Zuber to Peru to help with their formal conversions. In 1988, Zuber arrived in Peru and aided the converts in matters such as how to properly observe kashrut and Shabbat. Eventually, it was decided that the Inca Jews could not reach their full potential in Peru, and decided to make aliyah to Israel. A Bais Din initially performed formal conversions on around 300 of the community in 1991, almost all of whom emigrated to Israel, and they were followed by an additional 200. A community of around 30 Inca Jews moved to Lima at the same time, although they continued to face discrimination from the Ashkenazic community[3]. Another 84 were formally converted in 2001.

References

★ http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,770235,00.html "How 90 Peruvians became the latest Jewish settlers" The Guardian 8/7/2002

★ http://www.kulanu.org/peru/peru.html

★ http://home.earthlink.net/~jaypsand/scattered/pages/nations/americas/peru.html