EXODUS FROM THE AMAZON
by Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2003
by Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2003
Hundreds of descendants
of Moroccan Jews living along the Amazon are returning to Judaism and making
aliyah. Michael Freund traveled to
the tropical forests of Peru to find out why.
It is a sweltering summer day in the city of Iquitos, as the sun beats
down mercilessly at the gateway to the Amazon river in northeastern Peru.
Despite the heat, the town center bristles with life, as merchants and
shopkeepers hawk their wares in the marketplace overlooking the water,
offering a variety of goods for sale, ranging from freshly laid turtle
eggs to colorful and exotic fruits.
Boat captains of dubious maritime proficiency accost a group of foreigners, promising
them an afternoon of adventure in the
dense and forbidding Amazonian jungles, where bright toucans, 20-feet long
Anaconda snakes and energetic spider monkeys
roam about at will.
But nature is not all that is vibrant in this remote corner of the country. Quietly,
and without much fanfare, a remarkable
revival of Jewish life has taken place here too. Against all odds,
hundreds of descendants of 19th-century Moroccan Jewish settlers in the
area are now seeking to reclaim their heritage and move to Israel.
" Every Jewish community is unique, but the history of Iquitos' Jewish descendants
is so exceptional that it almost sounds
fictional," says Dr. Ariel Segal, a Venezuelan-born Israeli scholar
now teaching at a university in the Peruvian capital of Lima.
"Theirs is a survival of the soul."
It was in the 1880's, notes Segal in his book, Jews of the Amazon, which
is considered the definitive account of the Iquitos
community, that the local rubber boom triggered an economic and social
transformation of the area. Thousands of immigrants
from across the Atlantic, including many young Moroccan Jews, made their
way to South America in search of fame and
fortune, pulled by the prospect of dazzling financial rewards as well as
the opportunity to escape harsh conditions back home.
" They left Morocco because of economic reasons and anti-Semitism," Segal
says, adding, "Initially they went to Brazil, as
they had heard of it, but many of the more adventurous among them, perhaps
some 200, continued down the Amazon to
Iquitos."
Initially, the Moroccans had no intention of staying for long. Indeed,
while they built a cemetery to accommodate the
inevitable loss of life in a frontier area, they refrained from constructing
a synagogue, as they saw no need for a permanent
structure, sufficing to conduct regular services in people's homes.
With the passage of time, however, many ended up marrying local Indians. Others,
following the custom then prevalent in
the area, fathered offspring with several women while trading along the
Amazon, where they would often spend weeks or
months at a time winding their way through the jungle on commerical expeditions.
Though many of the Moroccans eventually pulled up stakes and left, a number
of them stayed behind and founded a Jewish
community in Iquitos, which was formally registered with the government
in 1909.
In recent years, their children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren,
have begun to reclaim their Jewish heritage. Many
bear distinctly Jewish names such as Cohen, Ben-Zaken or Ben-Shimol, while
thier outward appearance is often nearly
indistinguishable from the surrounding population.
Though they intermingled and intermarried with the locals, the Moroccans
instilled their progeny with a strong sense of
Jewishiness, instructing them never to forget their origins.
The current president of the Communidad Juda de Iquitos, Ronald Levy, is
a case in point. His grandfather was born in
Tangiers, Morocco, and came at the height of the rubber boom, settling
down in a small town along the nearby Ucayali river,
where Levy's mother was born.
Speaking in near-fluent Hebrew, Levy, an inspector for Peru's national
oil company, describes the reawakening of his
community and the challenges they face with a mixture of both precision
and care.
Services are held every Sabbath in town; where the entire community gathers
to pray, he says. During the week, lessons in
Hebrew are offered to better prepare people for life in Israel.
" About 200 members of the community have made aliyah in the past several
years," Levy says, "and more will be going to
Israel in September and October." There are an additional 100
descendants of Jews in Iquitos who have also begun the
process of return, he notes.
All those leaving for Israel, he says, undergo a Conservative conversion
by Rabbi Guillermo Bronshtein of Lima, and then
make aliyah under the auspices of the Jewish Agency. Once in Israel,
most of them go through an Orthodox conversion
as well, an option unavailable to them in Peru.
" It is not easy to be a Jew here, because of the many difficulties," says
Levy, explaining why so many members of the
community are packing their bags. "People study and convert
here, and then make aliyah. Once in Israel, they complete
there what they have started here," he says, referring to their desire
to rejoin the Jewish people.
For Calev Perez, conversion to Judaism and emigration to Israel represent
the closing of a historical circle.
Perez' grandfather was a merchant who found his way to Iquitos via Spain
and Portugal, but never left. "My grandfather's
death certificate says he was a Jew," the 28-year old Perez proudly
notes.
Although his late father had "some Jewish leanings", he eventually
became an evangelical Christian. But Perez, his mother
and two brothers were all drawn to Judaism, and they recently underwent
conversion by Rabbi Bronshtein.
" We do what we can to keep kosher. We do not eat pig or turtle," he
said, referring to two of the more popular local
delicacies. "We study Torah and try to be good people, and we
observe all the holidays."
After Perez and his family make aliyah this month, he plans to go through
an Orthodox conversion, "so I can get married
and have children."
Although as early as the 1960's, several Iquitos Jews succeeded in making
aliyah, the turning point for many of the Jewish
descendants came over two decades later, when several of them resolved
to revitalize community life in the city.
"The amazing part of the story", says historian Segal, "came
in 1991, when four descendants decided that it was not enough to meet only on
the High Holidays or when an 'important' Jew came to visit, but that they had
to organize a real Jewish
community to take better care of the cemetery, conduct prayer services
and mark the holidays."
" Imagine - after almost 100 years without a rabbi, a synagogue, a Sefer
Torah or a Jewish school," Segal says with a tone of
admiration, "they succeeded in forging a community."
Subsequently, the leaders of the community sent lists of all their members
to Rabbi Bronshtein in Lima and Avraham Shani,
the Jewish Agency's regional coordinator, in the hopes of setting into
motion a program for aliyah, community president
Ronal Levy recalls. "We were skeptical at first," he says, "but
there was a precedent for it. In 1989, three rabbis flew in
and converted several members of the community, who then made aliyah. So
we know it was a real possibility."
That possibility quickly became a reality, and the Jews of Iquitos began
heading for Israel.
Raquel Prutsky-Kilimajer, the Jewish Agency representative in Peru, has
nothing but praise for the Iquitos community.
" They feel very strongly about Judaism, and they want to live in the land
of their ancestors," she says. "They know that for
them and for their children it will be a better future."
Since taking up her post in March, Prutsky-Kilimajer has maintained regular
contact with the community, offering advice
and assistance to those planning to move. According to her data,
22 Jews from Iquitos made aliyah in July and August,
40 more are expected to do so by the end of September, and another 20 to
30 by the end of the year. This, in addition to
nearly 100 others who have moved in recent years, she said.
Asked to explain the community's growing interest in aliyah over the past
decade, Prutsky-Kilimajer says that it is largely a
function of technology. "This is happening because of the availability
of inforamtion, which is more easily obtainable than
ever before." Located beyond the forbidding Andean mountains,
Iquitos is accessible only by plane or boat, and still retains a certain
sense of isolation from the rest of the outside world.
But beyond that, she says that as the community has grown in strength and
commitment, they have come to realize that
their best bet for long-term survival as Jews lies elsewhere. "There
is no Jewish future and no economic future here".
Historian Segal agrees, saying "most of those remaining will go to
Israel, and I think that is the best type of 'assimilation'
that can happen."
" In the end," Segal concludes, "at least they will vanish from
the Iquitos because they came to Israel, and not because they
surrendered to the fate of being in an isolated place."
Jews of the Jungle
Over a century ago, after sailing across the ocean, Moroccan Jewish immigrants
heading to South America would typically
start out at the Brazilian coastal city of Belem, where many of them eventually
stayed. Others continued further west,
following the Amazon to the Brazilian city of Manaus, while a smaller number
ventured on to Iquitos in Peru.
But there is plenty of evidence to indicate that all along the length of
the Amazon (which at 4,000 miles is the second
longest river in the world, after the Nile), the Moroccan Jewish traders
made their presence felt. Various accounts exist of
Jews, or their descendants, residing in remote parts of the jungle outside
Iquitos.
According to Alfredo Rosenzwig, author of the first article ever written
about the Jews of the Amazon, the ;Moroccan
immigrants "spread children all around the jungle. Sometimes, when
you asked a child rowing a canoe what his name was, he
told you that his name was David. 'I am Jewish', he said and then
he told you who his father was."
Though his research focused on Iquitos, historian Ariel Segal says it is
known that there were Jews living in other places
throughout the area. "There were Jews, and their descendants are
still there, in other Amazonian cities and towns such as Pucallpa, Tarapoto,
Nauta and San Martin, but I do not know if we are speaking nowadays about
a few families or a more
significant number." He says that while scholars have studied
the Jewish communities of Manaus and Belem, which exist
until today, no one has yet undertaken a comprehensive look at the countless
villages and smaller habitations scattered
throughout the jungle, where Jewish descendants may still reside.
Ronald Levy, president of the Iquitos Jewish community, confirms this,
saying that during the rubber boom in the area, some
Jews left Iquitos "and went along the Amazon eastward, where they
ended up marrying local women and settling", living
in small villages throughout the jungle.
Though most of the Amazonian descendants are not considered halachially
Jewish, Israel's Chief Rabbinate believes that more
must be done to help them. Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, a dayan (judge)
on the Rabbinical Conversion Courts who has visited
Iquitos, says, "I believe the Jewish descendants in Iquitos have a
sincere desire to return to the Jewish people, one which is
motivated by their geniune emotional and historical links." Hence,
he states, "the Jewish people should welcome their
longing to return with open arms, though on condition, of course, that
they undergo formal conversion."
As head of the community, Levy is anxious to reach out to the remaining
Jews of the jungle, whether in Iquitos or beyond,
and help those wishing to return to Judaism to do so. "We want
to bring them back," he says. "They are interested in
Judaism. They have the spark."
