Making Jews in El Salvador

A Remarkable Jewish Community in the Most Unlikely of Places

El Salvador March 18-21, 2013

In February, Rabbi Steven Peskind called me, “Jonathan, a few months ago you mentioned to me that if I needed any help in El Salvador that you might join me. Are you free next month?”

I checked my calendar. I told my wife that I was invited to El Salvador. She said, “Go if you want.” I called him back and said, “I’m in,” and my quick adventure began, together with my colleague Rabbi Jack Luxemburg.

El Salvador conjures up images of street fighting, anarchy and civil war. The war ended four decades ago. Or perhaps you might picture the notorious reign of gang inspired anarchy and violence—extortion, kidnapping, drug running—you know, the type of stuff you might see on a Netflix series. The president of El Salvador recently built huge prisons to incarcerate 40,000 gang members. The country is now stable and happy to let the civil libertarians complain all they want. Life here is good and prosperous and stable. I am staying in a Marriott hotel. Out of my window is a modern upscale shopping mall with a backdrop of a green and verdant volcano. We can drink the water and the food is fresh and beyond plentiful. If I spoke Spanish, I could live here. English doesn’t get you very far.

But for me, El Salvador will always evoke a strong attachment to Judaism and the Jewish people. More on that later.

We have done some powerful sitting and eating. Upon our arrival late Saturday night, we were taken to a fabulous steak house. Our Sunday was spent driving to the Pacific coast and then westward over cliffs and through tunnels to get to a restaurant overlooking the ocean where we sat and ate. Then we traveled north into the mountains to stop and eat some more; coffee and pastries this time. Finally, we made it back to San Salvador to meet our folks and begin our Jewish adventure with this small Jewish synagogue they call Derekh Torah (the Path of Torah). Our community prepared a lovely potluck dinner. So we ate again. Can’t be rude. And just as we finished up, more than satisfied, they brought out the main course. Here are our daily activities in El Salvador. Eat. Pray. Love. This could be a movie?

I complained to Judi about the buckets of great food we are consuming. She said, “Don’t eat so much.” I replied, “That’s easy for you to say. You really can’t understand unless you are here.” Their hospitality transcends graciousness. Magically someone appears to open my car door, take my backpack, and help me get up the stairs (I don’t need help but they are there, still), the omnipresent watchful eye of wonderful people taking care of us and each other.

Rabbi Peskind, (Steve) has been shepherding this community of nascent Jews for more than a decade from his computer screen in Chicago. They worship in a small synagogue every Sabbath morning, Torah study with Steve via the internet every Saturday afternoon. Classes on Tuesday evening studying Torah and Judaism. These people are serious. COVID kept them from completing the conversion process, so they were bunched up waiting eagerly for our arrival.

Jack and I taught on Sunday night. I taught about the Jewish people’s experience at Sinai. Jack spoke about the measures of a good human being, taking his script from Pirkei Avot. We were blessed to have Raul and Freddy who were our translators. Nobody yawned. Teaching with a translator can be an advantage. I was able to go a little slower and carefully measure my thoughts and words. Our students were eager and hungry to learn. Nobody looked at their watch or finished their Wordle. That seriousness of purpose and love of God, Torah and Judaism permeated everything we did.

To be honest, these are not normal El Salvadorans. The mainstream Jewish community here is a small orthodox synagogue separate from this smaller congregation of Jews by choice. Rosa and Boris, operate a small Jewish bookstore, selling books in Hebrew and Spanish as well as other Judaica. They have committed themselves to Judaism, whole hog (just a cliché!). Boris, a chiropractor by day conducts the worship, studies Kabbalah and teaches regularly. Rosa sort of runs the place keeping everyone and everything altogether.

In a singular momentous day, my colleagues and I officiated at thirteen conversions. We started at nine in the morning and fell into our Marriott beds fourteen hours later. Picture a holy three ring circus. Every conversion has an interview with a beit din (a panel of three observant Jews—rabbis preferred), full body immersion—three times--in a mikveh. a body of living water. And for males, circumcision.

The conversion stories we heard were in many ways different from what we would hear in the United States. Most people who choose Judaism in our neck of the woods already know a Jew. Perhaps they are married to a Jew or have a best friend who is Jewish or know someone from school or work to take them under their wing and inspire them. In America some might be attracted to the cachet of Jews and Judaism in modern culture.

Jews are rather hard to find in El Salvador. All of our candidates embraced Judaism out of a love of God and an attraction to the study of Torah and the practice of Shabbat. Many were involved with Saturday Sabbath observing Christian churches. They woke up one day and said, “Maybe I would be happier to explore the tradition that started the whole Sabbath gig?” Others were taught about Jesus the Jew and wanted to learn more about Jesus’ people. Others found that Christianity didn’t make sense to them and they did not experience God in church. They were God hungry. This happens in North America too. But here, Judaism is in the culture and Jews can be in the family. Not so among our thirteen Jews by choice.

After our early breakfast, we made our way to the mikveh, a small structure owned by the community. We had left our upscale Marriott neighborhood far behind. The neighborhood was modest—not really a slum but nothing fancy and no indications of wealth or affluence. It appeared that every block had a “Light of Jesus” or a “Living Heart of God” evangelical church—each small like our mikveh.

The Jewish conversion process requires an elongated period of learning. These folks had been together for at least five years. Then on the day itself, each candidate undergoes an interview/examination by a rabbnic panel, circumcision for males and three full body immersions, naked, in the mikveh, followed by a ceremony of affirmation, reading from the Book of Ruth and the conferring of Hebrew names to signify a new identity among the people of Israel.

Our mikveh building had an enclosed driveway which led to two small rooms, a toilet and shower and a lovely ritual bath walled for privacy. The rabbis would interview the candidates in one of the two rooms, while in the more private room the circumcisions were executed. Prior to this day all the men had been surgically circumcised. Still Jewish practice requires the drawing of a single drop of blood from the penis with the appropriate blessing for making converts.

We were promised that a dentist would be available to take care of the males, which made me kind of wince knowing what dentists are capable of doing. Fortunately, for all considered, the dentist didn’t show, and Boris went into the back room to perform the necessary circumcisions. Nobody complained before or after. Everyone was all smiles.

The mikveh building did not have air conditioning. In the morning it was not too bad. But by 11:00, the tropical heat built up and stayed with us all afternoon causing us to wilt and fade in stages.

Picture the action. In the driveway, the morning crew of candidates sat patiently talking quietly and waiting their turn. Three rabbis in white shirts and neckties (I insisted after lunch that the ties got buried) sat with a candidate and translator to discuss their spiritual journeys and practice. Boris is in the second room doing what he needs to do to fulfill the required ritual for men. After the interview, the candidate took a shower and knocked on the door when he or she was ready for the immersion. If the candidate was male, Steve went into the mikveh room and supervised the immersions. If female, Rosa went in with the candidates.

Jack and I would stop our interviews, stand by the mikveh outer wall and listen for Steve or Rosa to call out “Kasher!” meaning the immersion was good. We listened for the blessings in the Spanishly accented Hebrew and shouted out “Amen” after each blessing, doing our duty as witnesses. The candidates would come out of the water, get dressed and make their way back outside with wet hair amid a chorus of Siman Tov u’Mazal Tov. (a good sign and congratulations—sung at happy moments) to rejoin their group and sit back in the enclosed driveway while the hours dragged on and the temperature rose seven degrees every hour until the last candidate went home to meet us again that evening.

A lot of action. A lot of joy. A lot of getting up. A lot of sitting down. A lot of Spanish. A lot of Interruptions. And a lot of wet hair, splashing, singing, and tears. The candidates were thrilled. The rabbis were thrilled too, but a little exhausted as the day wore on.

That night, we headed back to the synagogue for the concluding ceremony. Thirteen candidates were given their Hebrew names. Thirteen new Jews held the Torah for the first time and sang, “Sh’ma Yisrael HaShem Elokeinu, HaShem Ehad, Hear O Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One.” If only my words could describe the joy and love these people expressed while they prayed to God as Jews for the first time. If only I could express what we witnessed and experienced.

We squeezed them altogether under a large Tallit and we three rabbis blessed this new congregation of unlikely but most dedicated Jews in the unlikely but most dedicatedly holy of Jewish spaces.

The community joined together in a festive meal and shared their joyous experiences with each other. I was exhausted and exhilarated. But as much as any other moment I have enjoyed, this is when it is a great blessing to be a rabbi.

As I finish this report, I want to dedicate this message to the extraordinary and marvelous Jews I met in, where else, but El Salvador. I was honored to welcome and be welcomed by Hadassah, Esther, Elisheva, Geula, Ephraim, Azriel, Hayyim, Eliav, Natan, Gershon, Naim, and Israel ben/bat Avraham v’ Sarah. To all of them, I wish long life and the blessing of mitzvot and the ever presence of God as they are gathered under the wings of the Shekhina.

From Psalm 92:

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.