Patrick Comerford
Most European media outlets are reporting how Donald Trump’s aggressive attitude to Canada has boosted the electoral prospects of the new Prime Minister, Mark Carney. But Trump’s aggression is also targeting his neighbour to the south – and, in a similar way, these onslaughts on Mexico have boosted the popularity of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been in office only since October.
President Sheinbaum has 83% approval, making her one of the most popular leaders in the world today. Mexican people approve of her stand in the trade war and in the face of threats from their northern neighbour, and in response to Trump’s idiotic attempts to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman president, but she is also the first Jewish president in a country with one of the largest Catholic populations in the world. Although she is not a religiously observant Jew, Dr Sheinbaum identifies as culturally Jewish and has spoken proudly about her heritage.
She was a physicist and climate scientist before she went into politics; her father was a chemical engineer, and her mother was a cell biologist. Her parents were born in Mexico. But her maternal grandparents were Jews who emigrated to Mexico from Bulgaria before the Holocaust, and her paternal grandparents had fled from Lithuania in the 1920s.
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born on 24 June 1962 in Mexico City, the second child of Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz (1933-2023), a chemist, and Annie Pardo Cemo, a biologist. Both parents were Jewish, and she grew up in a secular, science-driven household.
Her grandparents moved to Mexico escaping poverty, antisemitism and the Holocaust. Carlos Sheinbaum was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. His father, Chone Juan Sheinbaum Abramovitz, emigrated from Lithuania in 1928, becoming a jewellery merchant and a member of the Mexican Communist Party. Annie Pardo is from a Sephardi Jewish family who arrived in Mexico in 1942, fleeing the persecution of Jews in Bulgaria during World War II. Annie Pardo was the first Sephardic woman to become an academic at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional.
President Sheinbaum's parents were actively involved in Mexican left-wing politics in the 1960s, taking part in protests, workers’ movements, and student uprisings. As she was growing up, the future President celebrated Jewish holidays with her grandparents. But, while she has said she is proud of her origins, she describes her faith as secular and she is not involved in Jewish community life in Mexico City.
‘I grew up without religion. That’s how my parents raised me,’ she told a gathering hosted by a Jewish organisation in Mexico City. ‘But obviously the culture, that’s in your blood.’ When she was campaigning, Dr Sheinbaum said she considers herself a woman of faith but is not religiously affiliated.
She completed her PhD in energy engineering, working on her thesis at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.
Jewish newspapers in Mexico mostly focused on her becoming the first woman to be elected president, barely mentioning her Jewish background. Mexico is overwhelmingly Christian, with nearly 100 million Catholics and 14 million Protestants.
Professor Ilan Stavans of Amherst University who is also Mexican and Jewish, has written extensively about the Jewish diaspora in Latin America. ‘The election of Claudia Sheinbaum as Mexico’s first female Jewish president is a benchmark for the Jews of Latin America, whose presence in the region goes back to the arrival of Columbus and his crew at the end of the 15th century,’ he said.
About 50,000 Jewish people live in Mexico. The majority live in Mexico City and the surrounding areas, and there are small communities in the cities of Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana, Cancún, San Miguel de Allende and Los Cabos.
The first Jews arrived in Mexico in 1519, along with the Spanish colonisation. The community began to grow substantially by the early 20th century, as thousands of Jews fled from the Ottoman Empire to escape instability and antisemitism.
The first Jews in Mexico were Conversos, often called Marranos or ‘Crypto-Jews’, who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism but were subjected to constant scrutiny from the Spanish Inquisition.
During the period of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521-1821), a number of Jews came to Mexico, especially during the period of the Iberian Union (1580-1640), when Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same monarch. When Portugal regained independence from Spain in 1640, Portuguese merchants in New Spain were prosecuted by the Mexican Inquisition.
With the introduction of religious toleration in Mexico in the 19th century, Jews could openly migrate to Mexico. They came from Europe and later from the crumbling Ottoman Empire until the first half of the 20th century. The Mexican Jewish community today includes both Ashkenazi Jews, whose families came from Central and Eastern Europe, and Sephardic Jews, whose families came mainly from Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain and Syria.
Although Dr Sheinbaum is not part of the organised Jewish community, her family history is part of Mexican Jewish tradition and history. She is seen as aligned politically with her predecessor, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Since the present conflict began in the Gaza Strip, Israel and the West Bank, Dr Sheinbaum has condemned attacks on civilians, has called for a ceasefire and supports a two-state solution.
Daniel Fainstein, the dean of Jewish Studies at the Hebraica University in Mexico City, told the Times of Israel: ‘I think that the main issue in the election, even for the Jewish community, was not her Jewishness, but her political views.’ But Professor Fainstein believes many in the Jewish community view Dr Sheinbaum in a slightly more positive light than the previous president.
The Jewish community in Mexico is tight-knit, with around 95 per cent of children attending Jewish-run schools, ranging from right-wing Orthodox to secular Zionist.
Despite her secular Jewish identity, Dr Sheinbaum faced antisemitic comments from political detractors during the election campaign. Some of her opponents used her Jewish heritage to launch attacks on her, questioning whether she was born in Mexico or was even Mexican.
A former president Vicente Fox referred to her as a ‘Bulgarian Jew’ and labelled her opponent, Xochitl Gálvez, a right-wing populist, as the ‘only Mexican’ in the race. After she briefly put on a rosary with a crucifix after being handed one during a campaign stop, Fox tweeted, ‘Jewish and foreign at the same time.’
Dr Sheinbaum felt forced to make public photographs of her birth certificate to dispel rumours that she is foreign-born. ‘I am 100% Mexican, proudly the daughter of Mexican parents,’ she posted.
During the final debate in the campaign, Xochitl Gálvez pulled out a printed photograph of Dr Sheinbaum wearing a skirt decorated with a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and accused her of using ‘Mexicans’ faith for political opportunism.’
‘This is a total provocation and I will not engage in it,’ she responded.
Dr Sheinbaum’s election has opened the door to a greater understanding of the history of Jews in Mexico. But it is interesting that she was not on the receiving end of significant attacks for her gender, despite Mexico’s reputation for a ‘traditionally machoistic’ political culture.
Forbes ranks Dr Sheinbaum as the fourth most powerful woman in the world. Her approval rating was at 76% when she took office and at 80% in January, shortly after US President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Because of Trump, though, her approval rating has risen to 83%, according to a poll by Enkoll for El País and W Radio within the past week.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
Related content: Ignacio Comonfort, President of Mexico, descended from the Comerfords of Callan (30 June 2024)
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