The history of the Jews in Peru dates back to the country's Spanish period with the arrival of migration flows of Sephardic Jews from Europe, the Near East and Northern Africa. This small community virtually disappeared as a result of the Inquisition, and was only revived by a number of migratory waves that took place during the 19th-century and the early to mid-20th century, with a number of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews arriving to northeastern Iquitos due to the Amazon rubber boom, as well as the country's capital, Lima, through neighbouring Callao, where they also settled due to World War II.
The small community in and around Iquitos is now known as the Amazonian Jews, most of which have since established themselves in Israel since the late 20th century. In Lima, the community is based in the upper-class districts of San Isidro and Miraflores, where a number of synagogues are also located. A synagogue also services a small community in the southern city of Cuzco.
History Spanish period Some Jewish conversos arrived at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Then, only Christians were allowed to take part in expeditions to the New World. At first, they had lived without restrictions because the Inquisition was not active in Peru at the beginning of the Viceroyalty. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the original attraction for Jews to come to Peru was the mineral potential. Many Jews had come to Portugal disregarding the immigration restrictions placed at the time. This action would then be used in trials against some of these crypto-Jews who faced the tribunal of Lima, further adding on a penalty to their actions.
The Holy Office of the Inquisition established an office in Lima January 9, 1570, to control the Christian population of the Viceroyalty and to identify non-Catholics, such as Jews, Lutherans, and Muslims. Consequently, 'New Christians' began to be persecuted, and, in some cases, executed. Descendants of Jews were sometimes called "marranos" ("pigs"), converts ("conversos"), and "Cristianos nuevos" (New Christians) even if they had been reared as Catholics from birth. Crypto-Jews, self-proclaimed Catholics who would secretly adhere to Judaism, were the initial targets of the tribunal and punished, tortured or killed if caught. Some avoided the tribunals by immigrating out of Spanish territories, such as Peru.
To escape persecution, the conversos settled mainly in the northern highlands and northern high jungle. They intermarried with natives and non-Jewish Europeans (mainly Spanish and Portuguese people) in some areas, assimilating to the local people: in Cajamarca, the northern highlands of Piura (Ayabaca and Huancabamba), among others, due to cultural and ethnic contact with people of the southern highlands of Ecuador. Their mixed-race descendants, known today as the Amazonian Jews, were reared with syncretic Catholic, Jewish, European, and Andean rituals and beliefs.
According to historian Ana Schaposchnik, the stages of the trial followed "a sequence of: denunciation, deposition, imprisonment, hearings, accusation, torture, confession, defense, publication, sentence, and the Auto." The Auto de Fe were occasional public ceremony of punishments made through the inquisition. The punishments included being burnt to a stake, whipping, and being exiled. The trial had started with the accused being convicted of a crime.
The tribunal had often used their connections of viceroyalty to gain information about the New Christians, about their past actions in other Spanish colonies. This was the case of Joan Vincente, who was a Portuguese New Christian who had previously been renounced but was put into trial in 1603. His previous actions in Brazil, Potosi, and Tucumán had all been shared by the viceroyalties in those regions. The genealogies of the crypto-Jews were accessible through this connection, making it possible to accurately see who were New Christians. Since the actions of the accused was often not documented, the accused New Christians in court could not prove their statements, while the viceroyalty could obtain all the documentation needed in the trial.
In most trials, the accused New Christians would not give up names of others who were also known to be Judaizing, until they were tortured. After days or weeks of torture, most crypto-Jews gave up other crypto-Jews up to the tribunal. For example, Mencia de Luna, had said during the trial, "tell notaries of the tribunal to write whatever they wanted in her declaration, so that her suffering would come to an end". Schaposchnik also states that from recorded accounts from 1635 to 1639 of new Christian Portuguese, 110 people were arrested due to their alleged connection to the Great Jewish Conspiracy, with many having to reconcile their faith to Christianity along with being exiled and facing confiscation of property. He states, "As a result of the Auto General de Fe, the community of Portuguese New Christians in Lima were decimated." It is said that up 11 people were burned at a stake as they did not confess to committing any Judaic practices.
According to anthropologist Irene Silverblatt, though it is not clear that those who were persecuted under the inquisition were practicing Judaism, most of the New Christians in Lima were considered "tainted" even after being baptised. Many New Christians during this time were seen to be inferior to Old Christians being banned from certain professions, entering universities and public offices. The inquisition had those who had been called, to confess to their sins and share information on others who had practiced Judaism in Lima.
A notable figure of those prosecuted in Lima included Manuel Bautista Pérez, an individual who was considered as "one of the world’s most powerful men in international commerce". Perez had been arrested once in 1620, when a broad sheet had been found which claimed that Perez was one of the premier teachers of Judaism in Lima. The witnesses and inquisitors considered Perez to be an 'oracle' due to his vast knowledge and wealth. Though Peru fought to the best of his abilities during the hearings, the overwhelming evidence against had mounted up. The inquisitors had faced some difficulty in going through with the trial, as Perez was a part of the viceroyalty's high society, with many clergy and high figures testifying for his innocence. Some of the evidence submitted in the trial included many New Christians appearing as witnesses calling him the Great Captain of Jews in Peru, along with his brother-in-law denouncing him.
Another notable crypto-Jew that had been in the tribunal was Antonio Cordero, who was a clerk from Seville. He had been originally denounced in 1634 with weak evidence, such as abstaining from work on Saturdays and not eating pork. The tribunal decided to conduct a secret arrest on Cordero, so there would be no one suspecting the tribunal's involvement. They gave him no sequestration, and he confessed that he was a crypto-Jew. After they had tortured Cordero, he gave up the name of his employer and two others, which then gave up the name of more crypto-Jews in Lima. This eventually led to seventeen arrests being made, with many notable merchants being brought to the Tribunal as crypto-Jews. According to Henry Charles Lea, this then led to many frightened Portuguese to try to flee Lima.
19th century
The first Jews to arrive to an independent Peru were first recorded in 1855, when the frigate Nicoline arrived from Hamburg. Two of the ship's passengers were Louis Gosdinski and Johana Rosemberg, along with their sister Minna, the latter two originally from Bromberg. The couple's son, Adolfo, was probably the first Jew to be registered as such; he would later serve in the War of the Pacific on the Peruvian side. The first Jewish-owned businesses were established in 1852. Immigration increased in the 1860s, with communities from France, Germany, England and Russia moving into the country. One such family was the Calmann family, who acquired silver mines in Copiapó and Arica. By 1870, there were about 120-300 Jews in Peru. In 1885, the first Torah scroll was brought into the country, with ceremonies held in Masonic lodges rented for the High Holy Days.
During the last decades of the 19th century, many Sephardi Jews from Morocco emigrated to Loreto as traders and trappers, working with the natives. The first was Alfredo Coblentz, a German Jew who arrived in 1880 at the port of Yurimaguas.Rita Saccal, "The Jews of Iquitos (Peru)" Starting in 1885, the Amazon rubber boom attracted even greater numbers of Sephardi Jews from North Africa as well as Europeans. Many settled in Iquitos, which was the Peruvian centre for the export of rubber along the Amazon River. They created the second organised Jewish community in Peru after Lima, founding a Jewish cemetery and synagogue. After the boom fizzled due to competition from Southeast Asia, many European and North African Jews left Iquitos. Those who remained over generations have eventually married native women; their mixed-race or mestizo descendants grew up in the local culture, a mixture of Jewish and Amazonian influences and faiths, and are now known as the Amazonian Jews. This community became linked with that of the Brazilian city of Belém.
In 1870, the Sociedad Hebrea de Beneficencia was formally founded by Jews wishing to organise the proper burial rituals and financial compensation for the families of ten Jews who died of yellow fever in 1868, who were buried in the British Cemetery of Callao. A provisional directory had been established in Abril 1869 under the leadership of Jacobo Herzberg and Miguel Badt, but the society—under the presidency of Natazzius Hurwitz, who was accompanied by Paul Ascher and Jacobo Brillman—was only officially recognised on July 1, 1873. In March 1875, the first stone of the Campo Santo Israelita de Baquíjano was placed in a terrain acquired from U.S. businessman Henry Meiggs in what was then Baquíjano farm, located at La Legua Valley. The first Jewish woman to be buried there was Mina Rosemberg. Prior to this, burials had been a persistent issue, as was the case of the Hahn family from Breslau, who could only bury a member in the municipal cemetery following a large donation.
In Lima, a small number of Ashkenazi Jews left Europe and the United States for Peru, working in banking, commerce and infrastructure, among other lines of work. In 1875, the number of Jews in Lima was 300, of which 55% were from Germany, 15% from France, 10% from England, 10% from Russia and 20% from other backgrounds. A notable resident at the time was Auguste Dreyfus, who had signed a contract with the Peruvian government to acquire 2 million tons of guano. The War of the Pacific, which took place from 1879 until 1883, also interrupted any immigration during this period. By 1890, it was estimated that around 200 Jews lived in the country.
20th century From around 1910 to 1915, a wave of Sephardic Jews from the Ottoman Empire, as well as Greece, Morocco, and Egypt migrated to Peru. Around 1912, some Ashkenazi Jews, mostly from Western and Eastern Slavic areas and from Hungary, also made the same voyage, chiefly to the capital Lima. In 1909, the Charity of Iquitos was established by businessman Victor Israel, who later served as the city's mayor.
The Jewish–German Sociedad de Beneficencia Israelita saw the separation of the Sephardic Sociedad de Beneficencia Israelita Sefaradí on November 9, 1920, which was officially registered on November 24, 1925, inaugurating its premises in Santa Beatriz on September 17, 1933. Meanwhile, the Ashkenazi Unión Israelita del Perú was founded at the Chirimoyo neighbourhood on June 11, 1923, which was officially registered on November 16, 1929. The Organización Sionista del Perú, a Zionist organisation that sought to reunite all of Peruvian Jewry, was established in 1925.