More than 20 members of the Kansas City area Jewish community traveled last week to Mexico City on a Jewish Federation mission, where they experienced the city’s vibrant Jewish community, touring its institutions, participating in Shabbat services and dinner, and visiting the Memory and Tolerance Museum.
“We’ve been inspired by the pride, commitment, and sense of belonging and shared responsibility of the Jewish community in Mexico City,” said Victor Wishna, a Federation board member who co-chaired the mission with his wife, Annie. “In a diverse community of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews, some 95% of children attend Jewish day schools, and every adult volunteers in the community in some way.”
Mexico City is the third-largest Jewish community in Latin America and has been the cultural center of Mexican Jewry for generations. As of 2014, nearly 75% of Mexico’s Jewish population lives in the city.
During the mission, participants received briefings from Federation’s core overseas partners, including representatives of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and World ORT. They also visited renowned historical and cultural sites, from Mount Sinai Synagogue — built in 1918 — and the Teotihuacan pyramids to the National Museum of Anthropology and Frida Kahlo’s Blue House.
Participants considered touring the massive Centro Deportivo Israelita a highlight of the mission. Centro Deportivo Israelita is the largest Jewish Community Center in the world outside of Israel. It has 18,000 members and houses athletic, social, cultural and artistic activities, as well as a restaurant and hair salon.
Shabbat also was memorable, according to trip participants, from experiencing Friday morning with students at Olami ORT school to Kabbalat Shabbat services and dinner at Bet El Synagogue, the second congregation in Mexico supported by the Conservative Movement, where Head Rabbi Leonel Levy, originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, welcomed the group.
“Our community supports Jewish life all around the globe through our collective contributions to Jewish Federation, and it’s amazing to see firsthand a thriving Jewish community that we can connect with, learn from, and be able to share our own experiences as well,” said Helene Lotman, Federation president and CEO. “From Kansas City to Mexico City to Ukraine, all Jews are responsible for one another.”
The trip appealed to a variety of demographics, with younger couples like the Wishnas and Lisa and Eric Rubin of Manhattan, Kansas, participating, as well as a number of retirees. Lisa Rubin was excited to be visiting at this stage of her life and said, “As a native Texan who has never been to Mexico, I’ve been waiting [years] for this opportunity.”
This was the first Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City mission outside the country since the mission to Cuba in September 2019. According to Lotman and Campaign Director Jonathan Schwartzbard, both of whom staffed the Mexico City trip, future missions will include Israel (and perhaps the United Arab Emirates), Bulgaria and Romania, which are Federation partnership communities.
