At a time when the Anti-Defamation League’s Global 100 survey on anti-Semitism around the world revealed a full quarter of the world’s adult population harbors anti-Jewish beliefs, the small Guatemalan town of San Juan la Laguna has created a registry of its Jews and has threatened the community with expulsion.
The community, which numbers a mere ten families, resides among less than 10,000 others in the Solola state. 300 local residents signed a petition to remove the Jews from the town and presented it to mayor Rodolfo Lopez, who agreed to ask the Jews to leave town.
Misael Santos is a Jewish convert who lives in the town. He and his family moved from Mexico City six years ago in search of a clean, quiet place to raise their children. He says he believes the tensions began when the synagogue he opened drew an influx of Jewish tourists to the area. He blames ignorance for the discomfort his neighbors feel.
“About seven months ago, visitors came to celebrate the Jewish New Year here,” he stated. “A Mexican family stayed for five months. We’re only two families in all, but then a public official began showing signs of discontent with the people here.”
“We were only two families, but he wanted us to leave,” he added. “We were doing nothing wrong – just exercising our freedom of religion.
“I put myself in their place and perhaps they are right to feel scared because before we were two families and now there are ten. And seeing us with our traditional dress, which is black, out of devotion and humility, in the streets, may cause fear,” he admitted.
“But someone must be directing this, because someone printed out fliers with false information [about Judaism and Jews] and put it under everyone’s doors.”
It began with slurs and anti-Semitic epithets and escalated to violence, including rock-throwing and an improvised Molotov cocktail.
“They uploaded photos of (Adolf) Hitler to a website about the Jews in town, saying they will put us in cremation ovens,” he said. “Fifteen days ago, a group of teenagers who… read the website came up to us and began throwing stones at us.”
Just days later, children hurled stones at a group of Jewish women, shouting “You killed Jesus!” Someone then threw the homemade explosive.
Santos says not everyone feels this way, and some of his neighbors have appealed to him to stay.
“Many people do not want us to leave, and have come to ask us not to leave,” he noted. “The fathers of my children’s friends, for example. They are Christian people, who live by their values. Some even said jokingly that San Juan Bautista, the patron saint of the town, is Jewish, and if we are kicked out he would also have to leave.”
But Lopez says there is nothing wrong with asking the Jews to leave. He told local paper Prensa Libre, “People have been waiting for a month and a half for them to leave town. This is the people’s will. A mayor is only the referee.” He said the Jewish residents had refused to abide by local customs. “We, as a local authority, have nothing against the Jewish community,” Lopez told the Times of Israel on Tuesday. “But every community, and especially ours, as indigenous Mayans, has very special customs and traditions and we have to defend our rights.”
