CHAPTER XL

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JEWS IN SOUTH AMERICA, MEXICO AND CUBA.

The first “minyan” in Buenos Ayres, Argentine, in 1861――Estimate of the Jewish population in Argentine――Occupations and economic condition of the various groups――Kosher meat and temporary synagogues as indications of the religious conditions―― Communities in twenty-six other cities――The Agricultural Colonies――Brazil――The rumor that General Floriano Peixotto, the second president of the new Republic, was of Jewish origin―― Communities in several cities――The Colony Philippson――Jews in Montevido, Uruguay――Other South American Republics――Isidor Borowski, who fought under Bolivar――Panama――Moroccan Jews are liked by Peru Indians――About ten thousand Jews in Mexico―― Slowly increasing number in Cuba, where Jews help to spread the American influence.

The immigration statistics of the modern Argentine Republic, which began to be collected in 1854, did not count the Jews, as such, and there is practically no records of the first settlement of Jews there, which took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is related that there was a “minyan” in Buenos Ayres on Yom Kippur, 1861, which was kept up irregularly for ten years, and was composed of English, French and German Jews. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1871 almost all of them, who were agents or representatives of business houses, fled the capital, and the “minyan” in that year was held in a little town where most of them met. This little community organized a “Congregacion Israelita” and built the first synagogue, before Jews from Russia began to go there in considerable numbers. A congregation of Moroccan Jews, “Congregacion Israelita Latina,” was organized in 1891.

The report of the Jewish Colonization Association for 1909, which contains a study of the Jewish population of Argentine, estimates the number of Jews living in Buenos Ayres at 40,000, and that of the interior towns――outside of the colonies――at 15,000 more. If we add to it the number of about 20,000 living in the colonies Moiseville (Santa Fé), Clara, San Antonio, Santa Isabel, Lucienville (Entre Rios), Mauricio, Baron de Hirsch (Buenos Ayres) and Berriasconi (Pampa), in addition to the Jewish immigration for the last three years, which averages about 9,000 or 10,000, it seems certain that there are now in the Republic of Argentine over 100,000 Jews, which means a larger number than in any country of the New World outside of the United States.

About eight-tenths of the Jewish population of Buenos Ayres are from Russia. The earliest settlers among them, who are now also the wealthiest, are former colonists of the I. C. A. (as the Jewish Colonization Association of Paris is designated). The remainder is divided into about 3,000 Turkish, Arabian and Greek Jews; 1,000 Moroccans and Italians; 1,500 French, German, English and Dutch, etc. The first two groups contain many wealthy merchants, but the great majority consists of dealers in second-hand goods and of peddlers. The last group, which is the oldest, consists of merchants of the higher grades. Among the Russians there are also a large number of business people, but a very large number are artisans in various trades. As to their date of arrival, the English, French and German are the oldest, as stated above. Some Moroccan and Italian families have lived there about thirty years, but the majority of that group came in the last decade. The earliest Turkish Jews came there less than fifteen years ago, but the great majority of them came about 1905. The Russians began to come in considerable numbers about the time of the establishment of the first colonies, and they still keep on coming in increasing numbers.

There are in Buenos Ayres about one hundred Jews engaged in the liberal professions, two-thirds of whom are natives of Russia. The communal institutions leave much to be desired, but there has been some improvement lately, and it is reported that a large Jewish hospital will be erected there in the near future. The religious conditions are indicated by the fact that about 7,000 kilograms of “Kosher” meat was sold there daily in 1909, and that on Yom Kippur of that year services were held in not less than twenty-four different places, including the temple. M. Samuel Halphen, a former religious teacher, was lately chosen rabbi of Buenos Ayres, while Dr. Herbert Ashkenazi, who studied at Berlin, and was chosen by the I. C. A. as chief rabbi of the colonies, also resides in that city.

The Jews are now scattered all over Argentine, and some can be found in almost any locality, especially in the provinces of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Entre Rios and Cordoba. The above-mentioned inquiry[60] deals with the Jewish population of twenty-six cities besides the capital, beginning with Rosario, Santa Fé. which has among its 173,000 inhabitants more than 3,000 Jews, 2,500 are Russians, 359 Orientals and Moroccans and about 100 French and Germans. The cemetery was acquired in 1905 and the congregation was organized in 1907. In Santa Fé, which has less than 600 Jews, the Moroccans bought a cemetery as early as 1895. Parona has a small community of less than 300, with a _Sociedad Israelita Argentina de Beneficencia_, which was founded in 1897. But most of the communal institutions and the communities themselves are less than ten years old, which means that Jews are just beginning to spread over the country. A majority of the Jews in the interior towns of Argentine are former colonists, and most of them are doing tolerably well. Their presence in a free and progressive country, where they can be useful to themselves and to their neighbors, must therefore be credited to the I. C. A. which has thus accomplished some good, even for those whom it could not, for various reasons, turn into successful farmers.

The largest share of attention was, however, paid in the last two decades to that part of the Jewish population of Argentine which has settled in the agricultural colonies established by the I. C. A. As early as 1889 independent attempts had been made by Jewish immigrants from Russia to establish colonies in Argentine, but it was not done on a well-ordered plan, and later these colonies and colonists were absorbed by the Jewish Colonization Association. The oldest and most successful colony, Moiseville, founded by Russian immigrants in 1890, before the establishment of the I. C. A. was re-organized by that association in 1891. Mauricio, in the province of Buenos Ayres, was established about the same time, and the large group of colonies in the province of Entre Rios, which is collectively called Clara (after the Baroness de Hirsch), was founded in 1894. Despite the friction which caused many colonists at considerable expense, to leave the places where they were settled, and despite the prejudice which was aroused against the entire colonization scheme by these seemingly interminable quarrels, the agricultural colonies in Argentine, as a whole, are ♦successful and their future is bright. The colonists are fast paying off their debts to the association which assisted them to settle there, and many of them are even chafing under the limitations which prevent them from paying off more rapidly. The centers of Jewish population, both agricultural and――indirectly――urban, which were thus artificially created by the munificence of Baron de Hirsch, have become healthy and natural, and are now attracting independent immigration. There are now, as stated above, nearly 20,000 souls in the colonies, but more than a fourth are described as non-colonists. There are 44 schools with more than 3,000 pupils in the colonies, and the statistical tables from year to year show a slow and solid progress, which augurs well for the future of the Jews in Argentine.

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There were, as far as known, but very few Jews in modern Brazil, even under the humane and scholarly Emperor Dom Pedro II. (1825–91), who was well versed in Hebrew, and maintained friendly relations with several Jewish scholars in Europe. The immense country attracted but few Jews after the Emperor was deposed and a republican form of government instituted in 1889. There were some rumors at that time that General Floriano Peixotto, one of the leaders of the revolution, who was the first Vice-President and the second President (1891–94) of the new republic, was of Jewish origin. But like the statements about the Jewish ancestry of Christopher Columbus and many other notables, they could never be verified, and there is not available sufficient genealogical material in either case to prove or disprove assertions of that nature.

In 1900 a number of Roumanian Jews went to Brazil, but effected no permanent settlement. A list of the leading merchants of the various cities in Brazil, which was published by the Bureau of American Republics about 1901, discloses a large number of names unmistakably Jewish, most of them apparently of German origin (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, s. v. Brazil). The formation of a Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, was reported in January, 1905 (in the _South American Journal_ of London), and a report in the _Jewish Emigrant_ of St. Petersburg, the Russian organ of the I. C. A., five years later (1910, No. 20), tells of Jewish merchants in many large cities of Brazil, including Rio Grande, Pelatas, Sao Gabriel, etc., and of Porto Alegra, Rio Grande do Sul, where a community was then about to be organized. The existence of a synagogue in Para, “where they worship on the festivals,” was reported in 1910. (_Jewish Chronicle_, Oct. 21, 1910.)

The chief interest of the Jewish world in the Jews of Brazil is, however, concentrated on the agricultural colony, Philippson, in the state of Rio Grande, where there are now settled about 400 Russian Jews, mostly from Bessarabia. It was founded by the I. C. A. about six years ago, and is now under the direction of M. Leibowitz, one of its former oldest employees in Argentine. The colony is in a flourishing condition, and it is being constantly enlarged, while new settlements are projected in the same part of the country. Here, too, like in Argentine, the colony attracts some Jewish immigration, and it was also the cause of the establishment of small Jewish settlements in the nearby towns of Pinhal, Santa Maria, Cruz Alta, etc. The number of Jews in Brazil is now estimated at 3,000.

There are, according to the report mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, about 150 Jews in Montevido, the capital of Uruguay, South America, most of whom came there from Buenos Ayres. About half of them are from Russia, the remainder hail from Greece, France and Alsace, and Roumania. They are engaged in various occupations and their material condition is not bad. Ten young Russian Jews joined the army and three of them attained the rank of sergeant. There is hardly any religious

## activity, except for a “minyan” held on Yom Kippur. Matzoth for the

Passover are brought from Buenos Ayres, and a “Mohel” is also usually brought from there when the occasion arises.

There are several thousand Jews scattered over the other republics of South America, but they are mostly recent arrivals and unorganized, and very little is known about them. It is probable that the Polish-Jewish military adventurer, Isidor Borowski (b. in Warsaw, 1803; killed at the siege of Herat, Afghanistan, 1837), who fought under the great hero of South American independence, Simon Bolivar (1783–1830) in many battles,[61] was then the only Jew in that part of the world. Even at present, the number of Jews in the countries liberated by Bolivar is insignificant. There are about 500 Jews in Venezuela, mostly in the capital, Caracas, where the first Jewish congregation was founded in 1899. (American-Jewish Year Book 5660, p. 289). According to the writers of the American chapter in _Outlines of Jewish History_ by Lady Magnus, for which――as stated in the preface――“Lady Magnus is in no wise responsible,” Jewish congregations were formed in Caracas and Coro, Venezuela, in the middle of the nineteenth century, presumably by Jews who lived there formerly as ♦Marranos. But if these congregations existed at all, they must have been short-lived, and it is not certain that even the latest “first congregation” of 1899 is still in existence.

Hardly anything is known of Jews in Bolivia or Colombia, but it is certain that a considerable number are now to be found in the diminutive Republic of Panama, through which the great isthmian canal is now being cut by the United States. There were enough Jews in the city of Panama before that time to acquire a cemetery about 1905. The Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris assisted a number of Moroccan Jews to settle in Peru, where they were reported as doing well and being better liked by the Indians than either Europeans or Chinese. But the climate does not agree with them, and many of them leave Peru as soon as they save a sufficient amount of money. About 100 Jewish residents, Moroccan, French and English, who own the largest stores and rubber plantations, are found in Iquitos, Peru, which was at one time an Indian village. There is a small community of Russian Jews in Lima. A number of prosperous Jewish merchants are located in Santiago, Chile, and in other cities of that republic, but there is no record of religious organization or of communal activities.

The number of Jews in Mexico is estimated to be not far from 10,000, mostly Syrians, Moroccans and French Alsatians. But as far as it is known, there is among them no organization and no religious life except an occasional “minyan” on the high holidays.

There is also a slowly increasing number of Jews in Cuba, mostly at Havana, where Moroccan and Syrian or Turkish Jews came to trade long ago; but since it was liberated from the Spanish yoke by the United States, Jewish immigrants from Europe, who formerly lived in the United States, settle there and help to spread the American influence.

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