Trisha Shetty (Editor)

List of Mexican Jews

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Mexico has had a Jewish population since the early Colonial Era. However, these early individuals could not openly worship as they were persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition for practicing Judaism. Independent Mexico eventually adopted freedom of religion and began receiving Jewish immigrants, many of them refugees. The book Estudio histórico de la migración judía a México 1900-1950 has records of almost 18,300 who emigrated to Mexico between 1900 and 1950. Most (7,023) were Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestors had settled in Eastern Europe, mainly Poland. A further 2,640 Jews arrived from either Spain or the Ottoman Empire and 1,619 came from Cuba and the United States.

Contents

The 2010 Census counted 67,476 individuals professing Judaism, most of whom live in Mexico City.

The following is a list of notable past and present Mexican Jews (not all with both parents Jewish, nor all practising Judaism), arranged by their main field of activity:

Academia

  • Julio Frenk, president of the University of Miami, former Secretary of Health and dean of the Harvard School of Public Health
  • Enrique Krauze, public intellectual, historian, essayist, critic, producer, and publisher
  • Helen Kleinbort Krauze, historian, mother of Enrique Krauze
  • Arturo Warman, anthropologist, cabinet member of Salinas and Zedillo

    • Architecture

  • Sara Topelson de Grinberg, architect
  • Abraham Zabludovsky, architect
  • Alejandro Zohn, architect, Holocaust survivor

    • Classical music

  • Daniel Catán, composer
  • Henryk Szeryng, violinist

    • Photography

  • Senya Fleshin, photographer and anarchist
  • Mariana Yampolsky, photographer

    • Visual arts

  • Maurice Ascalon, sculptor
  • Arnold Belkin, painter, born in Canada
  • Olga Costa, painter
  • Luis Filcer, Expressionist painter
  • Pedro Friedeberg, painter
  • Mathias Goeritz, painter, sculptor, born in Germany
  • Vlady Kibalchich Russakov, painter
  • Tosia Malamud, sculptor
  • Leonardo Nierman, painter, sculptor
  • Wolfgang Paalen, painter, sculptor and art philosopher
  • Fanny Rabel, painter, member of Los Fridos artistic group.
  • Diego Rivera, painter, muralist (Atheist)

    • Business

  • Carlos Alazraki, advertising executive
  • Daniel Lubetzky, entrepreneur, author
  • Franz Mayer, financier, photographer, collector, and the founder of the Franz Mayer Museum
  • Moisés Saba, businessman; board member of various companies
  • Sergio Zyman, marketing executive

    • Film and television

  • Brigitte Alexander, actress, director, author and translator for UNESCO
  • Susana Alexander, actress
  • Erick Elias, actor
  • Irán Eory, actress, model
  • Pati Jinich, TV chef, cookbook author
  • Mauricio Kleiff, screenwriter
  • María Eugenia Llamas, actress
  • Mariana Levy, actress
  • Emmanuel Lubezki, cinematographer, winner of three Ariel Awards for Best Cinematography (1992, 1993, 1994) and 3 Oscars in the category (2013-15)
  • Miroslava, actress
  • Norma Mora, actress
  • David Ostrosky, actor
  • Alfredo Ripstein, film producer
  • Arturo Ripstein, filmmaker, screenwriter, producer
  • Claudia Salinas, model, actress
  • Alexander Salkind, producer.
  • Ilya Salkind, producer.
  • Diego Schoening, singer, actor and television host
  • Alan Tacher, television host
  • Ari Telch, actor
  • Gregorio Walerstein, film producer and screenwriter

    • Music

  • Alix Bauer, singer, founding member of Timbiriche
  • Ari Borovoy, songwriter, founding member of the Latin pop group OV7
  • Adan Jodorowsky, musician, singer, and actor
  • Mark Tacher, musician, vocalist, guitarist, and television host

    • Journalism

  • Shanik Berman, journalist
  • David Faitelson, sports journalist
  • Giselle Fernández, television journalist
  • Adela Micha, TV and radio journalist
  • Jacobo Zabludovsky Kraveski, TV journalist

    • Literature

  • Chloe Aridjis, novelist
  • Anita Brenner, writer, historian
  • Mariana Frenk-Westheim, prose writer, Hispanist, translator
  • Margo Glantz, writer and critic* a prose writer who was author of the New York Times bestseller The Empress.
  • Myriam Moscona, author, journalist, poet and Ladino translator
  • Moises Salinas author and psychologist
  • Sara Sefchovich, writer
  • Esther Seligson, writer, poet, translator, and historian
  • Ilan Stavans, literary critic

    • Biology

  • Jerzy Rzedowski, botanist, plant geographer, researcher, Holocaust survivor

    • Medicine

  • George Rosenkranz, pioneering scientist in the field of steroid chemistry; Contract bridge Grand Life Master
  • Pablo Rudomín Zevnovaty, neuroscientist
  • Nora Volkow, psychiatrist; current director of the United States' National Institute on Drug Abuse

    • Physics

  • Jacob Bekenstein, physicist
  • Gloria Koenigsberger, physicist
  • Marcos Moshinsky, awarded physicist, UNAM cathedratic, Ukrainian-born

    • Politics

  • Gabriela Brimmer, writer and activist for persons with disabilities
  • Luis de Carabajal y Cueva, adventurer, slave-trader, Governor of Nuevo León
  • Francisca Nuñez de Carabajal, Marrana, sister of Luis de Carabajal, executed along with family members for practicing Judaism
  • Luis de Carabajal the younger, Governor of Nuevo León, author
  • Francisco de Carvajal, founder of the New Kingdom of León.
  • David Goldbaum, surveyor and politician of Baja California
  • Jorge Castañeda Gutman, politician and academic who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs; also known for losing a Supreme Court ruling that would have allowed him to run as an Independent in the 2006 Presidential race
  • Vicente Lombardo Toledano, labor leader
  • Diego de Montemayor, founder of Monterrey
  • Juan de Oñate, Governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, descendant of Conversos
  • Yeidckol Polevnsky Gurwitz, Senator, entrepreneur
  • Andrés Roemer, diplomat, author
  • Eliezer Ronen, Israeli politician
  • Binyamin Temkin, Israeli politician
  • José Woldenberg, political scientist and sociologist

    • Religion

  • Jacob Avigdor, Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi Jewish community, author, Holocaust survivor
  • Yosef Dayan, rabbi and the author of several books in Hebrew, Spanish and Italian
  • Moisés Kaiman, rabbi from Monterrey

    • Sports

  • Ilana Berger, tennis player
  • Wolf Ruvinskis, wrestler

    • References

    List of Mexican Jews Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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