The Incas who sacrificed all for Judaism

Peru’s Jewish community mirrors many across the diaspora. It is urban, well-educated, middle-class and business-oriented. Most members are descendants of European Ashkenazim. But the South American nation is also home to a small number of devout so-called Inca Jews — native Indians from the Andean highlands who were converted by a disillusioned Catholic.

While there is no current consensus, an estimated 200 indigenous converts live in two cities that lie 400 miles north of Lima, Peru’s capital and home to its traditional community of around 3,000 Jews. The majority, however, have made aliyah, mostly to the West Bank where they number around 500.

The origins of the Inca Jews, known as the B’nai Moshe, are vague and mythical. Accounts trace their story to a man called Sigundo Villanueva, a religious Catholic from Cajamarca, the Andean city where Spanish colonialists famously defeated Atahualpa, an Inca ruler, in 1553. In the 1560s, Villanueva became unsatisfied with his faith and embraced Judaism. One version of the story says he moved to Spain, where he studied further and, on returning to Peru, imparted his knowledge to 500 native Indians. Another says he never travelled, but established a kibbutz outside Cajamarca.

One fact is uncontested. The Inca Jews — reflecting a discrimination of native Indians across South America — were rejected by the main group in Lima. “The community in Lima consists of a certain socio-economic class and did not want them because they are from a lower level,” said Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, who travelled to Peru a decade ago to convert 90 native Indians.