B'nai Moshe
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| B'nai Moshe | ||||||
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| Total population | ||||||
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c. 1,000 |
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| •Vernacular: Spanish, Modern Hebrew •Liturgical: Hebrew |
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| Judaism | ||||||
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| •Peruvians mestizos, Amerindians, others •Jews Amazonian Jews, Other Jewish groups |
The B'nai Moshe (Hebrew: בני משה, "Children of Moses"), also known as Inca Jews, are a small group of several hundred converts to Judaism originally from the city of Trujillo, Peru, to the north of the capital city Lima.
Most B'nai Moshe now live in Israel, mostly in Kfar Tapuach along with Yemenite Jews, Russian Jews and others. They are in the process of absorption into the wider Jewish Israeli population, itself the in-gathering of a multitude of diverse Jewish ethnic divisions from around the world.
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[edit] "Inca Jews"
While Inca Jews is not the community's official designation, it is popular outside the community and is derived from the fact that they can trace descent from Peru's indigenous Amerindian people, although mostly in the form of mestizos (persons of mixed Spanish and Amerindian descent, though none with any known Spanish Jewish ancestors) and the association of that country's native population with the Incas
[edit] History
The community was founded in 1966 by a local man of Trujillo named Villanueva, who faced great exclusion and prejudice in his native city as a result of his decision to convert from the Catholic Church to Judaism. Villanueva had visited Spain for a time, learning from the local Sephardic community, and upon his return, taught around 500 disillusioned former Catholics in Trujillo about Judaism, igniting a spark which would ultimately lead to their conversion to Judaism and joining the Jewish people.
[edit] Discrimination by Jews and Gentiles
In addition to the discrimination suffered at the hands of neighbouring Catholics for their decision to convert to Judaism, the new community was also not welcomed by the established Jewish population of Lima. They tried to find refuge with Peru's small established Jewish community concentrated in Lima, mostly Ashkenazi Jewish World War II refugees of Hungarian and Polish backgrounds and their Peruvian-born descendants, but they were not received well.[1]
As Europeans in an enduring casta system that stems from the Spanish colonial period (ranking people in descending order by fraction of European origin: Europeans, grades of mestizos, mulatos, Amerindians, zambos, and ultimately blacks) the Ashkenazim were well integrated as a segment of the elite white minority which to this day dominates a highly stratified Peru.
The Ashkenazim in Lima refused to entertain the idea of the lower status prospective converts, and disapproved of any formal association, including the conducting of conversions in the local Beit Din or the procurement of religious texts or artifacts for the emerging community. The conversions would subsequently be conducted under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, circumventing the Ashkenazi community of Lima.
[edit] Conversion and aliyah
In 1985, Villanueva made contact with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who sent Rabbi Myron Zuber to Peru to help with their formal conversions. In 1988, Zuber arrived in Peru and aided the converts in matters such as how to properly observe kashrut and Shabbat.
As a result of the Lima community's continuing reluctance, it was eventually decided that the B'nai Moshe could not reach their full potential in Peru, and decided that they make aliyah (emigration) to Israel once converted. A Beit Din initially performed formal conversions on around 300 of the community in 1991, almost all of whom emigrated to Israel, and they were followed by an additional 200. A community of around 30 B'nai Moshe moved to Lima at the same time, although they continued to face discrimination from the Ashkenazi community[2]. Another 84 were formally converted in 2001.
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