Tijuana, Mexico (special) -- Barry Jacobs, Washington-based assistant director of the American Jewish Committee for international affairs, recently spent two days getting to know Tijuana’s Jewish community and proposing that programs be developed to strengthen the bonds between Jews in Mexico and the United States. 

Jacobs was accompanied by Gary Rotto, AJC’s San Diego regional director, during visits 
Jan. 28 and 29 to the Centro Social Israelita and the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja 
California respectively. 

At the Centro, Jacobs met for lunch with Rabbi Mendel Polichenco, as well as Centro 
president, Sofia Model, and other members of the board of directors.  The following day he 
had dinner with Carlos Salas-Diaz, leader of the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California, 
and other representatives of the synagogue whose leader and most members have 
converted to Judaism.  Afterwards, he attended Friday night Shabbat services with the 
Congregacion. 

Jacobs, who spent 28 years with the United States Information Agency (USIA) in Cyprus, 
Greece, Israel, Venezuela, India and El Salvador before retiring from government service, 
said the Tijuana visit was part of an overall program by the AJC to reemphasize its 
international operations 
. 
In speeches to both Tijuana groups, Jacobs noted that the American Jewish Committee 
was founded in 1906 in New York in response to pogroms being carried out against the 
Jews by Czarist Russia.  He said AJC has maintained its interest in international affairs 
ever since. 

“For many years, in fact, we did have an office in Mexico City,” he said.  However, in the 
middle 1980s, “the AJC went through a period of streamlining its operations to reduce 
costs.  One of the things that happened was that we closed our office in Mexico City. “ 
During this decade, the AJC opened an office in Berlin as part of its reemphasis on 
international affairs and “just recently, last October, signed an agreement with the Tribuna 
Israelita of Mexico City,” Jacobs said. 

The Tribuna Israelita began as a newspaper for the Jewish community but changed its 
mission to become a “nice little organization that does research on anti-Semitism and 
radical organizations in Mexico,” Jacobs said. “It keeps very efficient archives and track of 
all sorts of movements.” 

Jacobs said as AJC is interested in working with Jewish organizations in Meixco City, so 
too is it interested in those in Tijuana including the traditional community based at the 
Centro; the group of people who have converted to Judaism at the Congregacion Hebrea, 
and a third group: “a community, which is growing, of Jews who have left Mexico City 
because of the security situation--the danger of kidnaping.” 

Asked what forms international cooperation might take, Jacobs replied that “in Mexico City, 
we have come up with a series of realistic but not overly ambitious or expensive projects. 
...The American Jewish Committee has a lot of expertise in polling, and one of the things 
that we talked about with the Mexican community is that it has been several years since 
they have done a survey either of their own community...(or) with the larger Mexican 
community.” 

He said polling of the Jewish community may center on “what are their fears and hopes and 
expectations” while the general community can be surveyed to find out what they think of 
the Jewish community. 

Exchanging research is another possibility, he said.  "The Jewish community in Mexico 
has an interesting history, an admirable history, of social work,” he said.  “I got the paper 
that one of their directors (in Mexico City) wrote.  We are going to translate it, and we are 
going to put that out as a publication, send it to our chapters, so people can take a look at 
it.” 

Similarly in Tijuana, he said, “we are going to look for materials which the American Jewish 
Committee has produced that they might like to take advantage of and also the reverse, 
materials that they have produced that may be of advantage to our chapters in the United 
States.” 

He said the Tijuana Jewish community has much it can teach Jews in the United States. 
“They can tell us what it is like to run a pretty effective social and cultural organization with a 
very small base and nevertheless seem to be able to maintain their facilities as well as their 
social work.” 

Among the AJC’s own publications are the annual Jewish Year Book, “which has become 
an authoritiative reference book,” Jacobs said.  “If you want to know the Jewish population 
of Argentina, or who has died during the year, or trends in the Jewish cinema, it is a 
wonderful reference publication.” 

Gracia Molina Pick, a member of AJC’s San Diego regional board, and Suzy Norton, a 
former Mexico City resident with families ties in San Diego, accompanied Jacobs and Rotto 
on the first day’s tour to the Centro. 

Norton said she believes American Jews have much to learn from Jews in Mexico, “where 
the family values are so important, where education is one of the main things, and where 
assimilation rates are so much lower than we have in the States.” 

She said a relationship between the San Diego and Tijuana Jewish communities would be 
mutually beneficial, recommending it start with programs bringing together the youth of the 
two cities. 

Pick, endorsing such cooperation, said she admires the way the Tijuana Jewish community 
is “providing services for the community, keeping a social spirit with the community, 
bringing education for the children, having summer camps for the Jewish community of 
Tijuana.” 

* * * 
Every Thursday the Centro Social Israelita transforms itself into a kosher restaurant, with 
lunches of beef, chicken or fish offered at quite modest prices. Model told Jacobs that the 
kosher meat is purchased in Mexico City and “comes frozen by plane.  We pick it up and 
put it in the freezer.” 

He asked if it wouldn’t be simpler to purchase the kosher meat in Los Angeles.  “The 
Mexican people like the Mexican cuts,” she replied.  “Number one, it is better.  Number two, 
it is cheaper.  And number three, it is tastier.” 

Preparation of the food is overseen by the new mashgiach at the Centro, Moshe Peretz, 
whose family moved when he was 3 years old from Mexico to Israel.  He returned to his 
native country only eight months ago. 

If one desires, lunch may be accompanied with kosher wine, produced at vineyards in the 
nearby Guadalupe Valley under Mexico’s Domecq label.  Rabbi Polichenco provides 
guidance for production of the kosher varietals, which are sold at the Centro at $6.50 per 
bottle, except for sweet wine for the kiddush  which sells for only $4.50. 

There were other changes at the Centro credited to Polichenco, who is the first shaliach  of 
the Chabad movement to be authorized to work in Tijuana. 

He took the AJC delegation to a mikvah now under construction at the Centro.  It will be 
accessed through the locker room where women change their clothes to use the swimming 
pool or tennis courts. 

The rabbi also showed them improvements in the sanctuary including the new stained glass 
windows and other fixtures. 

Segal told the AJC delegation that under Jewish community auspices a group of doctors 
has organized to advise visitors who come to Tijuana in search of medical services or 
pharmaceuticals about where they can go to get the right kind of service and not be 
overcharged. 

The next day, over a pre-Shabbat fish dinner at La Escondida Restaurant, Zalema 
Chavira-Irgoyen, Olga Cardoso-Carboney and Cesar Reynoso Cardoso, all born to Roman 
Catholic families, told why they had decided to convert to Judaism. 

“Zulema is a name that was given to me when I was born,” Chavira-Irgoyen said.  “It means 
‘shalom.’ My father’s name was Israel.  This is why I think that perhaps our family orginally 
was Jewish because our names were Jewish.” 

Another thing, she said, after a nephew told her about the Congregacion Hebrea de Baja 
California, “when I used to hear the Shm’a, I used to cry and I would say ‘why do I cry?’; but 
I would cry, and after a few years (attending services) I decided I should become one.” 
As a Jew, she said, she feels able to come closer to God.  “I wasn’t a very good Catholic,” 
she added.  “I didn’t understand it.  They never taught me.” 

Cardoso-Carboney said whenever her family would discuss international affairs -- 
particularly the situation in the Middle East -- she used to always take the side of the 
Israelis.  “My uncle told me I am a Jew, and when I said ‘why,’ he told me ‘because you 
have Jewish blood in your body and that is why you defend the Jewish people.’” 
She learned that Cardoso is a well-known name among Sephardic Jews. 

It was the first time she thought about the possibility she might be from a Converso family. 
But there was another clue, she said.  “We have a ring--my daughter has it now--the ring of 
Elijah.  When I married, my uncle gave the ring, and I had it, but now my daughter has it.” 
“It is inscribed with Hebrew,” Salas-Diaz explained. 

Along with her son, Cesar, who is becoming a lawyer, Cardoso-Carboney converted a few 
years ago.  Their teacher, Salas-Diaz, brought them to the Conservative movement’s 
University of Judaism in Los Angeles where as part of their conversion each was examined 
by a beth din, and went to the mikvah. 

When dinner conversation turned to the concerns of Jews in Mexico, Salas-Diaz said they, 
like many other Mexicans, have gone through a great ordeal as a result of the recent 
devaluation of the peso.  “I know of families who lost large quantities of money,” he said. 
“Some people had all their investments in pesos and their debts in dollars, so this almost 
made them the most poor of all people.” He said he has been advising his congregants to 
open bank accounts in the United States as soon as possible to protect themselves against 
further devaluations. 

As hard as it is along the border, he said, it is even worse in the interior.  “They aren’t able 
to plant any seed because they have to purchase seed from the United States and the cost 
is extremely high,” Salas-Diaz said.  “The chemicals to fertilize and to fumigate come from 
the United States, so they have to pay dollars.  Everyone hurts.” 

Devaluation-spurred migration northward is adding to the number of impoverished people in 
Tijuana.  Congregacion Hebrea has a dining room from which it distributes food parcels 
and clothing to the poor.  Now, Salas-Diaz said, “we have decided to begin enhancing this 
program a little more, to the point where we can serve chicken soup with torillas, beans, 
chili, hot sauce. 

“We have done it so far on a scale that has not satisfied us as members of the Jewish 
community and does not supply the need and demand of these poor people,” he said. “I 
imagine very soon we will increase this type of service to the poor. 

“We do not preach in any shape or form to the people because they are hungry,” he added. 
“Our purpose is to feed them.  And if they need some clothing, we are also prepared to give 
them some blankets and so forth.” 

Salas-Diaz said it is not only in Mexico where Conversos and Crypto-Jews are hungering to 
learn more about their parental religion. 

“I was 27 years living in the United States, many in Los Angeles, and I know quite a few 
descendants and crypto-Jews there,” he said. “They are not affiliated.  Most of them come 
from Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey...and they do exactly what they did in Mexico, 
stay away from the congregations.” 

The 8 p.m. Friday night service, for which men wore their tallitim , was conducted almost 
entirely in Spanish, with the congregation and Salas-Diaz reading translated prayers from 
the siddur together.  About the only Hebrew recited was the shm’a, although at the oneg 
Shabbat following the service, the hamotzi  blessing over the bread was recited in full and 
the first part of the kiddush  over the wine also was said. 

Although there was no mehitza  in the sanctuary, men and women sat separately during the 
service, then rejoined as families at the oneg.  After hamotzi , Salas-Diaz distributed the 
bread, one piece at a time, to the congregants who waited for their portions with unfolded 
paper napkins in their cupped hands. 

Each visitor received a personal “Shabbat Shalom” greeting and a warm handshake from 
each of the congregants.  A large array of kosher baked goods (purchased from Lang’s 
Bakery in San Diego), as well as lox, bagel and cream cheese tempted congregants to 
remain at the oneg for a couple hours.