<LIMA, ancient capital of
the Peruvian viceroyalty and capital of *Peru, population
over 1,700,000 (1961). Ninety eight per cent of Peru's
Jewish population of about 6,000 lives in the city.
[Crypto-Jews from Spain and
Portugal in Lima and condemned to death]
Lima was one of the most important centers of *Crypto-Jews
during the Colonial period. Following the establishment of
the Inquisition in Lima (1570), Crypto-Jews, the majority of
whom were Portuguese, were condemned to death (in 1581,
1605, 1625, and 1639) [[by auto-da-fés, show trials with
stakes]]. Of the 63 Jews brought to trial in 1639, 12 were
put to death.
The remaining families became assimilated with the local
population and scarcely a trace of them exists. Street names
still surviving today suggest the presence of Jews in the
city during the days of the viceroyalty.
[Jewish immigration from
Europe since 1870 - mass influx during World War II from
NS territories]
A handful of Jews from Alsace settled in Lima around 1870,
and they established a benevolent society (Sociedad de
1870). The descendants of these immigrants assimilated
completely, but the Sociedad was continued by other
German-speaking immigrants. Its cemetery still serves the
community.
Individual Jews, most of whom were on government commission
as engineers, scientists, etc., also arrived during the 19th
century.
Jews from Turkey, North Africa, and Syria settled in Lima
about the time of world War I; afterward a much larger wave
of immigrants arrived from the disintegrating Turkish Empire
and the small Rumanian border town of Novoselitsa.
The next mass influx occurred during World War II, Peru's
relatively stringent immigration laws notwithstanding.
[[Many Jews probably came under other nationality quotas.
Unfortunately numbers are missing]].
[Community life]
The three sectors of the Jewish community - the Ashkenazi,
the "1870", and the Sephardi, are united under a roof
organization, the Asociación de Sociedades Israeliteas, and
each maintains its own synagogue and communal institutions.
Lima's Jewish school, León Pinelo, named after the
17th-century Peruvian lawyer, scholar, and writer, was
established in 1946. In 1966 it had an enrollment of 800,
which is 80% of all school-age children within the Jewish
community.> (col. 250)