History of the Jews in Paraguay

The first Jews to reach Paraguay arrived toward the end of the 19th century, coming from France, Switzerland, and Italy.[1] This earliest cohort was small enough that it merged with the local population without forming any organized community.[2] A parallel stream of Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish Jews who had previously settled in Argentina also began making their way across the border during the same general period.[1]

The pace of organized settlement quickened in the first decade of the 20th century. Several families from Argentina established themselves in Limpio in 1904–1905; a contemporary account describes their arrival at the port of Asunción as celebrated by a band playing music.[1] Around 1908, Sephardic immigrants began arriving from Ottoman Palestine, and that movement accelerated during the First World War, alongside newcomers from Egypt and Turkey.[1] By 1917, a 1941 survey estimated approximately 600 Jews in Paraguay, about 400 of them in Asunción, working mainly in commerce and trade, with a small number of doctors and lawyers.[3] That same year, the families Arditi, Cohenca, Levi, Mendelzon, and Varzan joined with other Sephardim from Turkey and Greece to form la Alianza Israelita and establish the country's first synagogue.[2]

A second significant wave arrived in the early 1920s, composed largely of Jews from Ukraine and Poland who came with assistance from relatives already established in Paraguay.[1] Some settled in provincial towns such as Villarica, Artigas, and Borja, while the majority gravitated to Asunción.[1] This Ashkenazi cohort founded the Union Hebraica, which became the anchor of Ashkenazi communal life.[4] A 1928–1929 statistical survey placed the Jewish population of Paraguay at approximately 400, based on an estimate from 1924; its accompanying note listed Jews in Villarrica and several provincial towns but did not list Asunción.[5]

The Paraguayan government encouraged Jewish agricultural workers for a time, a policy that produced a small Jewish farming area known as Colonia Franca.[3] Integration was not seamless: the World Jewish Congress describes the early period as difficult, both across the divide between Ashkenazim and Sephardim and between the Jewish newcomers and the non-Jewish Paraguayan majority.[1] Poorer Jewish residents in Asunción lived in a central district known informally as the "Palestinian Quarter."[1] Villarica, described as Paraguay's second city, nonetheless supported a small but active Jewish community with cultural and religious activities.[1]

The rise of the Nazi regime transformed Paraguay into an unexpected way station on a desperate road out of Europe. From 1933 onward, a new wave of German Jews began arriving, some intending to settle permanently and others passing through.[1] Between 1933 and 1939, an estimated 15,000–20,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia took advantage of Paraguay's comparatively liberal immigration laws to escape Nazi-controlled Europe, though it is not fully established whether this figure reflects arrivals, documentation issued, or transit.[1][2] Most used Paraguay or Paraguayan visas as a staging point toward Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, whose immigration requirements were more restrictive.[2] The comparatively small number who stayed founded the Unión de Israelitas por Socorro Mutuo, which eventually built the main synagogue, later located on the grounds of Union Hebraica.[2]

During the 1934–1935 mission of James G. McDonald — the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees — Paraguay was noted as a relatively encouraging destination.[6] Contemporary accounts described the country as preferring "young, unmarried men" who would settle permanently, marry locally, and become integrated into Paraguayan society.[6] The government had also signaled interest in specific professionals: agricultural experts, a geologist, accountants, a finance specialist, and international-trade experts — though those requirements had little measurable effect on overall refugee numbers.[6] Roughly 325 German refugees entered Paraguay in 1935, with immigration generally limited to agricultural workers, carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, and other artisans, in a country where wages and living expenses were both described as very low.[7]

Paraguay's immigration posture shifted markedly as the 1930s wore on. The government initially admitted some Jews, particularly those able to work in agriculture or who possessed capital.[8] A later decree barred the entry of Jews regardless of nationality, and Jewish immigration was subsequently halted — a policy shift contemporaneous sources linked to antisemitic activity and fascist propaganda.[3] By 1939, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum records Paraguay among the Latin American countries that introduced increasingly tight immigration restrictions, placing this within a broader regional environment of antisemitism, fears of economic competition, resentment that refugees who had been admitted for agricultural work later moved to cities, and the influence of Nazi ideology among some people of German descent.[9]

A separate and remarkable dimension of Paraguay's wartime role involved the use of Paraguayan documents to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. Polish diplomats and Jewish rescue activists in Bern obtained Paraguayan documents from a Paraguayan consul, inserting the names of Polish Jews into them.[10] One JNS opinion piece argues that this operation — which grew into a wider scheme using false Latin American passports, predominantly Paraguayan ones — helped Jews avoid deportation and that some passport holders were placed in special camps under a proposed hostage-exchange scheme.[10] The article states the conversion of Polish citizens into supposed Paraguayan nationals was conducted secretly and without the Paraguayan government's knowledge; a study identified 3,262 names among passport holders and estimated 796 survivors within that group.[10]

U.S. diplomatic telegrams from 1944 document the contested status of these documents. A June 17, 1944 cable reported that a "rather large number" of Paraguayan passports were circulating among Jews in German-occupied Europe, especially Poland, while noting uncertainty about the scope of Spanish diplomatic protection extended to their holders.[11] A subsequent telegram dated July 13, 1944 recorded that Paraguay had reportedly asked Spain in May to extend protection to all holders of Paraguayan documents, though no definitive Spanish response was reported, and U.S. officials argued that expired Latin American passports could still serve as evidence of nationality.[12]

A 2026 statement by the president of the Jewish Community of Paraguay presented a favorable communal account of Paraguayan conduct during the Holocaust. Humberto Javier Ismaovich Szumsztajn said Paraguayan diplomats had risked their lives by issuing visas and passports to Jews seeking to escape Nazi persecution.[13]

The years surrounding the Second World War brought episodes of anti-Jewish hostility alongside the broader shifts in immigration policy. A 1941 survey attributed anti-Jewish attacks and accusations that Jews were radicals or Communists in 1938 to some White Russian immigrants, including former officers in Paraguay's Chaco War against Bolivia.[3] Seventeen Jews were expelled from the country on charges of being Communists that year.[8][3] The same survey notes that many Jews had served loyally on Paraguay's side in the Chaco War and that their loyalty was recognized, though it gives no names or count of Jewish servicemen.[3]

Sources record both short-lived antisemitic decrees in 1936 and, during that year, a relaxation of some immigration restrictions that allowed non-agriculturist Jews with capital to enter; later measures closed the door to Jewish immigration.[2][3] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum situates these developments within a regional pattern in which Latin American governments officially permitted approximately 84,000 Jewish refugees to immigrate between 1933 and 1945, even as antisemitism, economic concerns, and other factors generated resistance.[9]

Paraguay's German-descent population contributed an additional layer of complexity. Some 40,000 Germans or people of German descent lived in Paraguay, many of whom openly supported the Nazis before and during World War II.[2] After the war, prominent Nazis found temporary shelter in the country; Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz physician who selected prisoners for execution and conducted medical experiments on inmates, received Paraguayan citizenship in 1959 under the name "José Mengele."[14]

Antisemitic incidents did not end with the war. In 2000, neo-Nazis distributed pamphlets at the American University in Asunción inviting people with grievances against Jews to a meeting, and a university teacher was dismissed after complaints that he had told antisemitic jokes.[2] Community leaders also successfully lobbied against the closure of the Israeli embassy and pressed the government to act following a bombing in Buenos Aires, which resulted in the extradition of seven Arabs suspected of complicity.[2] After the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, Jewish community leaders increased security around the community center in Asunción, though no specific incidents were reported in Paraguay.[15]

The end of the Second World War brought a final major wave of Jewish immigration to Paraguay. Most Jews who arrived in the country after the war were survivors of Nazi concentration camps.[1] More broadly, more than 20,000 Jewish displaced persons immigrated to Latin America between 1947 and 1953, with Argentina as the primary destination and smaller numbers settling in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica, and other countries; the USHMM does not specify how many came to Paraguay.[9]

Population estimates from the postwar decades reflect both the difficulty of accurate counting and genuine fluctuation. A 1948–1949 scholarly study listed 3,000 Jews in Paraguay, based on local estimates and cautioning that the available figures varied in accuracy and did not always refer to the same year.[16] A World Jewish Congress report covering August 1949–August 1951 acknowledged it could not obtain reliable information, having been told the population might range anywhere from 900 to 3,000; repeated letters to the Union Hebraica del Paraguay and Union Sionista del Paraguay in Asunción had gone unanswered.[17] A 1953 WJC affiliates guide gave an approximate figure of 1,000, noting that most Paraguayan Jews lived in Asunción and that families remained in Villarica.[18] Estimates for July 1958–June 1959 placed the figure at 2,000, and a 1960 report based on a questionnaire from the Consejo Representativo Israelita del Paraguay gave 1,200.[19][20]

The general trend from the latter decades of the 20th century onward was decline. Paraguay experienced a significant decrease in its Jewish population over this period alongside El Salvador, Ecuador, and Peru, in the context of a broader regional drop from an estimated 514,000 Jews in Latin America in the 1970s to 394,000 in later estimates.[21] The late-1980s estimate placed Paraguay's Jewish population at about 900.[22] Emigration to Argentina and Brazil was the primary driver, though some people moved to Paraguay from those countries, particularly through marriage.[2]

The institutional life of Paraguay's Jewish community took shape across several decades and survives in both active organizations and archival collections. The National Library of Israel holds 91 files documenting Jewish communal activity in Asunción, mostly in Spanish and German, with some Yiddish and English material: records of the Sociedad Templo Israelita Latino del Paraguay (active 1928–1969), the German-speaking Unión de Israelitas pro Socorro Mutuo (1937–1974), the Consejo Representativo del Paraguay (1940–1970), WIZO (1950–1967), and the Escuela Integral Estado de Israel (1959–1968), along with periodicals and other publications.[23]

The mid-20th century community, as documented by the 1953 WJC affiliates guide, comprised both Ashkenazim — 70 percent of Polish, Russian, and Romanian origin, the remainder of German origin — and Sephardim organized in the Templo Israelita Latino and united with Ashkenazim through the WJC-affiliated Allianza Israelita del Paraguay.[18] Three synagogues served the community, alongside a WIZO organization, a youth club with Zionist (Kalutziut) tendencies, an athletic youth club, and a Mutual Help Association assisting transmigrants.[18] There was no permanent rabbi, and religious instruction was described as almost nonexistent; a school sponsored by the Allianza Israelita taught Jewish subjects in Hebrew and Yiddish but operated intermittently due to a shortage of permanent teachers, with approximately 70 pupils attending.[18]

A JewishGen database separately records 254 Jews who arrived in Paraguay between 1918 and 1935, derived from the work of Alfredo M. Seiferheld and indexed from files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[4]

The contemporary Jewish community of Paraguay is concentrated almost entirely in Asunción, is largely traditional but not Orthodox, and is described as highly Zionist in orientation.[1] Recent population estimates range from approximately 900 to 1,100.[1] Hebrew University demographer Sergio DellaPergola estimated 1,000–1,600 Paraguayan Jews in 2002.[1] The U.S. Department of State's 2023 International Religious Freedom Report recorded an estimate of approximately 1,000 from Jewish community representatives,[15] while the 2024 human rights report placed the figure at fewer than 1,000.[24] A 2019 Ynet report gave the community's size as approximately 900. The community is represented publicly and before government authorities by the Consejo Representativo Israelita de Paraguay (CRIP).[1]

The Hebrew Union serves as the primary center for social, sports, cultural, and religious activities in Asunción.[1] The Escuela Integral Estado de Israel provides primary and secondary education to Jewish children, with the curriculum incorporating Hebrew and Jewish studies alongside the Paraguayan national program; 71 percent of Jewish children in the community attend it, and the school is open to non-Jewish enrollment as well.[2][1] About 50 Jewish university students were reported in Paraguay, in addition to students pursuing studies abroad, and most Paraguayan Jews work in commerce or industry.[2]

Asunción has three synagogues: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Chabad.[2] Chabad also distributes kosher food and provides a mikvah.[2] Other active organizations include B'nai B'rith, the Centro Israelita Juvenil, a WIZO chapter, and the Ha-No'ar ha-Ziyyoni (Hanoar Hatzioni) Zionist youth movement.[2] A Conservative temple operates in the city, and Beit Chabad maintains a presence.[1]

In 2018, after Rabbi Julian Vainstein concluded his tenure at Union Hebraica — a Masorti-affiliated congregation that had existed since the 1920s — he offered to hold Shabbat services at his home.[25] Nearly 70 people attended the first service, and the new congregation became Paraguay's first egalitarian Jewish congregation.[25] The group sought a Torah scroll and received one from the closing Congregation B'nai Jacob in Ottumwa, Iowa; the scroll arrived in Asunción 19 hours late, and nearly a dozen members of the minyan were waiting at the airport to receive it.[25] The Asunción congregation adopted the name B'nei Iacob in honor of the Iowa congregation's gift and legacy.[25]

The Jewish Museum of Paraguay, established in 1990 and located in Asunción, holds historical, documentary, and artistic objects relating to the community's history, including a Holocaust memorial.[26][2][1] The community also maintains a burial society and a dedicated cemetery.[1] Paraguay voted in favor of the 1947 UN partition resolution on Palestine, and an Israeli embassy was established in 1968.[2] In 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes in Jerusalem; the leaders signed a memorandum on technical development assistance and discussed security, water, agriculture, trade, and legal matters.[2] Paraguay relocated its embassy to Jerusalem in December 2024, and in April 2025 it designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.[2]

Tracking the size of Paraguay's Jewish population over time is complicated by the reliance on local communal estimates rather than systematic census data, and by the movement of Jews through the country as a transit point. The figures available from scholarship and communal records are best understood as approximations reflecting particular moments and methods rather than as a consistent, directly comparable series.

An estimate for 1924 placed the total at about 400, covering Jews in several provincial towns.[5] By 1932, the World Jewish Congress records 120 Jewish families in Asunción alone.[1] A 1941 survey estimated approximately 600 Jews in 1917 and offered a best estimate of about 1,200 around 1939–1941, largely in Asunción, Concepción, and Villarrica, while acknowledging that definitive data were unavailable.[3] The 1948–1949 world Jewish population study listed 3,000 for approximately 1947–1948.[16] The WJC's internal report for 1949–1951 could not obtain a reliable figure, citing a range of 900 to 3,000.[17] By 1953, the WJC affiliates guide gave approximately 1,000.[18] Estimates for 1958–1959 reached 2,000,[19] while a 1960 questionnaire-based study reported 1,200.[20] The late-1980s figure was approximately 900.[22] Recent estimates cluster between 900 and 1,100, with the divergence reflecting different reference dates and counting methods.[1][15][24]