Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Mexico

Mexico, home to one of the most organised Jewish communities in the Americas: its institutions and Zionist movement, Pegasus spyware, Israeli arms, and the dispute over Tomás Zerón

Mexico has a Jewish community of about 41,000, represented by the Comité Central de la Comunidad Judía de México. In 2024 Claudia Sheinbaum, who is of Jewish origin, became president; she kept her predecessor's declared neutrality on the war in Gaza. The Israeli NSO Group's Pegasus spyware has been used in Mexico against journalists and human rights defenders, including by the army. A former senior Mexican investigator wanted over the Ayotzinapa disappearances has lived in "Israel" since 2019, beyond the reach of extradition.

Jewish community and religious life

History

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) says that the first Jews arrived as conversos in 1519, and that the Inquisition, which opened an office in Mexico City in 1571, persecuted crypto-Jews throughout the colonial period. Organised Jewish immigration began in 1881 with Russian Jews, followed in the 20th century by Sephardi Jews from the Ottoman Empire. In 1924 President Plutarco Elías Calles invited Jews to settle, and the WJC says that "Jewish communal and Zionist organizations" were established in the following years. A 1936 population law restricted immigration from countries with large Jewish populations, and only about 1,850 Jews were admitted during the Second World War.

A history by Tribuna Israelita, published by the Mexican embassy in "Israel", says the first formal community, the Sociedad de Beneficencia Alianza Monte Sinaí, was founded in 1912. It was followed by the Comunidad Ashkenazí (1922), the Comunidad Maguén David of Jews from Aleppo (1938), the Comunidad Sefaradí (1941), and the Conservative communities Beth Israel (1957) and Bet El (1961). The Comité Central was set up in 1938 as a pro-refugee body, and Tribuna Israelita six years later "con el fin de combatir el antisemitismo" ("to combat antisemitism").

The community today

The WJC cites Sergio DellaPergola's figure of 41,000 Jews in 2024, about 75% of them in Mexico City, with smaller communities in Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana, Cancún and San Miguel de Allende. It estimates that 95% of members are affiliated with a religious institution and that about 95% of Jewish children attend one of 16 Jewish day schools, which range "in religiosity, Zionist, and secularism". It adds that "many branches of international Zionist youth and social organizations are active in Mexico's capital city". The main organisations are listed below.

• Comité Central de la Comunidad Judía de México: the representative body of the whole community and the WJC's Mexican affiliate. Its main role is relations with the authorities at every level. It works with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League and has close ties with Jewish institutions in the United States, Latin America and "Israel". On 15 October 2023 it held a rally of more than 3,000 people at the Centro Deportivo Israelita "en solidaridad con Israel". Those present asked "Israel"'s representatives in Mexico to pass on their solidarity to the Israeli people "y a su gobierno" ("and to its government"). Two Israeli soldiers addressed the meeting, the Israeli ambassador urged support for "Israel" in its fight against Hamas, and the event closed with the Israeli anthem.
  • How far is it Zionist? Strongly in practice. It organises public solidarity with the Israeli state and government and works alongside the embassy.
• Tribuna Israelita: founded in 1944 to combat antisemitism. The WJC says it has long co-operated with the Comité Central and takes part in WJC meetings.
  • How far is it Zionist? As the voice of the Comité Central, it shares its alignment with "Israel"; no separate evidence was found.
• The religious communities: the Orthodox Alianza Monte Sinaí, Comunidad Ashkenazí, Comunidad Maguén David and Comunidad Sefaradí, and the Conservative Beth Israel and Bet El.
  • How far is it Zionist? No specific evidence was found for the individual communities.
• Centro Deportivo Israelita: which the Tribuna history calls the community's largest institution, attended by members of every community. It hosted the October 2023 solidarity rally.
• Federación Sionista de México: see below.
• Youth and students: the Federación Mexicana de Jóvenes Judíos (FEMEJJ) groups the community's youth bodies, and the Vaad Hajinuj co-ordinates the schools.
• Media: community publications include Imagen David, Identidad Monte Sinai, NotiKehile and Periódico CDI.

How far is it Zionist? The historian Judit Bokser de Liwerant describes the Zionist "conquista de la comunidad" ("conquest of the community"), the Zionist leadership's drive to take over communal institutions, which the Bundists opposed. Today the central body organises public support for the Israeli state, and the WJC describes Zionist schools and youth movements as a standard part of communal life.

Chabad

Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement

Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Mexico. The Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters lists a Chabad centre in Polanco, Mexico City, run by Rabbi Mendel Mayzlesh.

Zionist movement and advocacy

Bokser de Liwerant's history traces organised Zionism in Mexico from the 1920s, under the World Zionist Organization's policy of creating a united territorial Zionist federation in each country. The Zionist groups and parties were unified only in 1950, when the Federación Sionista de México became their common framework. She argues that the Federación then lost ground as a mediator because the State of "Israel" developed direct channels with organised sectors of the communities, not mediated by the World Zionist Organization.

Israeli state and commercial ties

Diplomacy

• The Israeli foreign ministry dates recognition to January 1950; the WJC says full relations date from 1952. The WJC also notes a free trade agreement signed in 2000, increased security cooperation, and in 2017 the first visit to Mexico by an Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Under Andrés Manuel López Obrador Mexico kept a "neutral" position on the war in Gaza and declined to call it genocide. In October 2024 Sheinbaum said she would continue that policy, and that a Palestinian state should be recognised "en toda su magnitud, al igual que el Estado de Israel" ("in full, like the State of Israel").
• On 18 January 2024 Mexico and Chile referred the situation in the State of Palestine to the International Criminal Court, for investigation of crimes since the 7 October 2023 attack. The foreign ministry stressed that the prosecutor must be free to investigate crimes "whether committed by agents of the occupying power or the occupied power".

Tomás Zerón

Tomás Zerón de Lucio headed Mexico's Criminal Investigation Agency under President Enrique Peña Nieto and led the inquiry into the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa in 2014. He is wanted in Mexico for offences linked to that investigation, in which federal investigators later documented irregularities, including allegations of torture. He has been in "Israel" since 2019, and Mexico has no extradition treaty with "Israel". Sheinbaum said in 2025 that several letters requesting his extradition had been sent since López Obrador's time. In September 2026 she said she had written to President Isaac Herzog, who replied that the matter lay outside his powers.

Arms

SIPRI records 13 Israeli arms deals with Mexico. They include IAI Arava transport aircraft (1973–94), 120 mm mortars (1978–79), two second-hand Aliya missile boats with Gabriel-2 anti-ship missiles (2004), three second-hand E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft for uses including anti-narcotics operations (2004), four CH-53 helicopters upgraded to the Yasur-2000 standard (2005), Hermes-450, Dominator-2 and Aerostar drones (2009–17), and ASIO signals-intelligence systems fitted to three Citation aircraft (2016).

Surveillance

In 2017 the Citizen Lab and Mexican partners including R3D published eight reports on widespread Pegasus targeting in Mexico, of investigative journalists, lawyers for victims' families, anti-corruption groups, lawmakers and international investigators of enforced disappearances. The Pegasus Project later reported that at least 50 people in López Obrador's circle, including his children and spouse, were potentially selected for surveillance in 2016–17. In 2022 R3D and the Citizen Lab confirmed that two journalists and a human rights defender were infected between 2019 and 2021, after López Obrador had said the government no longer used the spyware. Internal defence ministry documents leaked by the Guacamaya group included a 2019 letter linking the army to the company with the exclusive right to sell Pegasus licences in Mexico. ARTICLE 19 said the documents showed a secret military intelligence unit had used Pegasus to spy on the human rights defender Raymundo Ramos, who was investigating extrajudicial killings by the army in Nuevo Laredo.

Ehud Barak's emails

The following items come from the two leaked mailboxes of the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister Ehud Barak (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.

• Airport security proposals, 2013. In July 2013, after meeting Barak, Amos Goren, chief executive of Automotive Robotic Industry, sent him "two proposals to the Mexican government for security and fire destiguisher for the Mexico city Air-port", with attachments on an autonomous fire-response system (AMSTAF) and the "security lay-out of Mexico City International Airport".
• Banamex speech, 2015. In June 2015 the Harry Walker speakers' agency relayed an invitation for Barak to speak at Banamex's Mexico Corporate Leaders Summit in Manzanillo on 2 October 2015, for an honorarium of $85,000 including airfare. Barak replied "Of course" (in Hebrew).
• FST Biometrics and Citi, 2015. In October 2015 Ari Zeevi Farkash forwarded Barak a message from Yaron Zussman of FST Biometrics: "We are working with Luis Meza for the Mexico project. He is the Head of security for Mexico", within Citi's security organisation.
• Vicente Fox. In March 2014 the office of the former president Vicente Fox arranged a phone call between Fox and Barak. According to Barak's son-in-law, Michael Menkin of the medical-equipment firm Elsmed, they met Fox on 27 January 2016. Menkin then drafted a letter offering Fox "a general proposal for cancer treatment center", proposing to "meet again in Mexico" and welcoming Fox's "idea for a medical tourism center in Baja California"; on 29 February he told Barak (in Hebrew) that Fox had not answered. On 12 February 2016 Fox wrote to Barak recalling "the wonderful visit we had with you in Tel Aviv" and thanking him "for all your support to us and to México". He invited Barak to joint appearances in Arizona, at Texas Christian University and at Centro Fox, saying the main aim was "to raise funds for the 3 foundations Marta and myself head in Mexico".

The emails do not show that any of these proposals led to a contract.

Trade

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics lists Mexico separately. In 2025 "Israel" imported goods worth $116.8 million from Mexico (2024: $125.4 million) and exported goods worth $380.7 million to it (2024: $357.5 million).

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics counts immigrants born in Mexico as follows:

• 48 in 1948–51;
• 168 in 1952–60;
• 736 in 1961–71;
• 861 in 1972–79;
• 993 in 1980s;
• 881 in 1990s;
• 1,806 in 2000–2020;
• 272 in 2021;
• 150 in 2022;
• 152 in 2023.

Political interference

UN voting

In September 2025 Mexico voted for the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.

Jeffrey Epstein

• In an email to David Stern on 15 November 2016, Epstein wrote that he had met the former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari with John Brockman at "the billionaire dinner", and that Salinas was "supposedly" building a house on the Marrakesh property of the Qatari politician Hamad bin Jassem, adding "me too".
• The businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego was among the recipients, with Epstein, of a March 2011 email from John Brockman giving details of a private dinner.

See also

• NSO Group
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Chile