They got Jews in Mexico?

Veteran filmmaker Isaac Artenstein recaptures his childhood home in “Tijuana Jews.”
By James Giza

  Five years ago, Jews from Los Angeles, San Diego and Mexico City reunited for a memory lane party at the Centro Social Israelita, the Jewish community center in the city they had once called home – Tijuana. Isaac Artenstein was one of them.
 
  The filmmaker, whose family moved to Chula Vista in the 1960s when he was in sixth grade, had always kicked around the idea of doing something on his background, and now he knew he had to. His grandparents’ generation, which had fled Europe and the Middle East in the 1920s and wound up Mexico, wasn’t going to be around much longer. But that wasn’t the only reason he sprung into action.

  “I would get these reactions of total surprise when people in the States would find out that there were Jews in Mexico. From Jewish people, which you think would know better,” says Artenstein, 50, director and producer of several documentaries and feature films, including 2004’s “A Day Without a Mexican.” “And then when I would tell them, ‘Yeah, and I’m from Tijuana,’ they would do like a triple take on that.”

  Thanks to his new documentary, “Tijuana Jews,” the history of Jews in the border city will be surprising a lot more people soon. Weaving in his own story, Artenstein presents an affectionate portrait of the strong, vibrant community of his childhood.

  In the 1920s, when immigration quotas restricted entrance into the United States, thousands of Jews sailed to Mexico, whose government, Artenstein says, offered land to Europeans to settle in the country. The nation had broken the dominance of its old Catholic institutions, and it placed a strong emphasis on the separation of church and state.

  That led to a unique educational experience for Artenstein and his Jewish classmates in Tijuana. Mexican history in school. Jewish history at the Hatikvah Club, the Jewish community center in the days before the Centro Social Israelita.

  “I loved history,” says Artenstein, “and of course Mexican history is really rich, from the pre-Columbian cultures, to the conquest, the colony, the fight for independence, the Revolution. I really ate it up. And then the great narratives of the Jewish tradition were just wonderful. Moses and the Pharaohs and all the different celebrations, coming up to World War II and the Warsaw ghetto. These narratives were very attractive to me.”

  Today, the Jewish community in Tijuana is not nearly as strong. Like Artenstein’s family, many Jews left for the United States. The Centro is struggling to survive, although it continues to provide an Orthodox school and maintains a kosher kitchen. And there is hope things will improve. Artenstein says Jews retiring in Baja and looking for a Jewish center have found it in his old home.
 
  “So Tijuana Jews have been beefed up by American Jews that are now Baja Jews,” he says.

For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.




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