Jewish history in Mexico

Posted on Thursday 18 March 2010

  • I am trying to find out about possible jewish settlement in a town called Jaral del refugio in Guanajuato Mexico.


  • Lynne-ga, I could find no mention of the exact place name on the web "Jaral del Refugio", nor any but coincidental combinations of "Jaral and "Jews." However if you search on "del refugio" jews in Google, you'll get some interesting history about a Jewish family of the name, and it might be that the original information you have came to you is faulty. I've done a good amount of research in Jewish history, and one of the worst problems is the lack of standardized spelling, so if the name "Jaral" came in and out of Yiddish, Ladino, or Hebrew, it could have easily been garbled.


  • from what i gather, it is popularly known as "El Jaral" even though it may officially be el jaral del refugio, so that might yield better results. also, u may want to offer more money because im sure with a couple long distance calls someone might point you to a source with the info...


  • thanks, I got a lot of good leads. I think I need to write a more specific question next time.


  • I am posting this as a comment as I have found a lot of information on Jews in Guanajuato, Mexico but I could not find any mention of a town called Jaral del refugio. I have sent an email to Shep Lenchek author of Jews in Mexico, A Struggle for Survival. His web site http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/slenchek/sljewsinmexico1.html has a pretty extensive history of Jews in Mexico. You may be interested in reading it while we wait for a reply from him. If he replies with any useful information I will post it as an answer


  • This page, in spanish, lists all the possible last names that could derive from a jewish genealogy, and points in the direction of several other countries: http://www.mesianicos.net/judios_en_mexico.htm Maybe a search in the registers of Guanajuato might yield more information, but it's doubtful that anyone will find more than ehat is already posted online...


  • Hiya, Lynne-ga... I looked for names similar to "Jaral del Refugio" in Guanajuato state, Mexico, but I drew a blank. It might have been a smaller settlement, I suppose. I found two interesting sources about the immigration and settlement of Jews into Mexico, though. "The Virtual Jewish History Tour – Mexico, by Isaac Wolf" http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/vjw/Mexico.html and "Jewish Communities of the World – Mexico," from The Institute of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and Virtual Jerusalem http://www.wjc.org.il/wjcbook/mexico/ There, you will find some interesting material about the various "waves" of Jewish settlers in Mexico.


  • Greetings! Since you did not capitalize the "refugio" in your post, you may be looking for a jewish refuge in or near Guanajuanto. The name Jaral del refugio literally means "Jaral of the refuge" and may pertain to a nearby refuge of a Jewish surnamed Jaral which resided in Guanajuato Mexico, as opposed to an actual named village. In searching for combinations of the names you posted, I discovered information from Shep Lenchek titled "Jews in Mexico, A Stuggle for Survival" an article in three parts. Also, there is this mention at the website of Guillermo Lazo: "The first Delgados began appearing in Mexico around 1746. Ten years earlier, in Spain, an Antonio Delgado was imprisoned for practicing Judaism, and his mother-in-law was burned at the stake. That was the reason I’d been unable to get beyond 1746. The preceding ten years must have been years of flight and secrecy, escaping the Inquisition even as they traveled to the Americas. The Office of the Inquisition followed them to Mexico City. The Delgado and Lazo family (historically linked) fled to Guanajuato. The Nieto family fled first to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon (the “New” Lion of Judah), then West Texas and finally New Mexico." Searching the term "Guanajuato jews" at Google, it returned the following two sites which seemed pertinent: Guillermo Lazo article (his email is at the bottom of aticle) http://www.cryptojews.com/Lazo.html Shep Lenchek article (Mr. Lenchek's email is at the top of the article) http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/slenchek/sljewsinmexico1.html Searching the term "Jaral Guanajuato" I found numerous references to a Jaral del Progreso in Guanajuato which may be the place for which you are looking since "progreso" means "progress" and may indicate a progressive settlement in thought and action. One site I found was http://www.jaralgto.gob.mx/ and, though it is in Spanish (as are most of the ones returned from that search), you may translate it through a free online translation service such as http://www.freetranslation.com You might be able to contact officials in the area to see if there is information on Jews in history from that area. Also, searching "Guanajuato el Judio" which means "Guanajuanto jew" I discovered many references available at the Google page ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Guanajuato+el+Judio and these were also in Spanish, so must be translated. I hope this information proves to be of assistance. It seems some extensive research into that area will have to be conducted by you to ascertain the exact information for which you are looking. Good luck on your search!


  • In addition, the comments below concerning the search for "del refugio" jews Guanajuanto produced other information, and you may view the search results at ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22del+refugio%22+jews


  • Greetings and thank you for your rating of my research. I am happy you found leads of which you were not previously aware, and you are correct on specificity of asking a question: the more detailed you become, the more specific is the research that is delivered. Should you ever require research in other matters, please feel free to request my services.


  • This document http://www.inegi.gob.mx/difusion/espanol/poblacion/definitivos/iter/INITER11.PDF lists Jaral del Refugio as being a neighborhood in the town of Ac mbaro, so it could be the one you're looking for. Searching for pages that had both the name of that town and words related to Judaism (in both Spanish and English) didn't yield anything that stood out to me. But perhaps this might serve as a clue for somebody (or maybe not).







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    rose @ March 18, 2010 edit
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