Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Panama

Panama, with Central America's largest Jewish community: its communal institutions, the 1994 Alas Chiricanas bombing, Ehud Barak's 2014 visit, and the Mulino government's alignment with the Zionist state

Panama has about 10,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Central America. It is the only Latin American country that does not recognise the State of Palestine. On 19 July 1994 a bomb destroyed an Alas Chiricanas aircraft after take-off from Colón, killing everyone on board, many of them members of the Jewish community; the US government has concluded that Hezbollah was responsible.

Jewish community and religious life

History

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) says conversos passed through Panama in the colonial period, Sephardi Jews from Jamaica and Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe settled after 1821, and Romanian and German Jews arrived in the 1930s.

The community today

Estimates vary: the WJC gives about 10,000 and cites Sergio DellaPergola's estimate of 10,000–12,000 for 2012, while BBC News Mundo cites the US religious freedom report for 2023, in which Jewish leaders estimated about 15,000. The WJC says Jews have held "high offices of state such as the presidency".

• Consejo Central Comunitario Hebreo de Panamá: the umbrella body for the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities, which runs the Hebrew Central Community Center. Its president is Max J. Harari. It and the Congreso Judío Panameño (president Alan Perelis) are the WJC's affiliates.
  • How far is it Zionist? Likely strongly, through its WJC affiliation; no statements of its own on "Israel" were found for this page.
• Shevet Ahim: the Orthodox Sephardi congregation, with four synagogues in the city and three in beach resorts, a kolel and kashrut certification. The other synagogues are the Orthodox Beth El and the Reform Kol Shearith Israel.
• Other bodies: B'nai B'rith, Maccabi and WIZO are active. Five Jewish day schools in Panama City, including the Isaac Rabin School and the Alberto Einstein Institute, are attended by almost 98% of Jewish children. Noar Panama is the main youth organisation.

How far is it Zionist? The community includes Zionist bodies such as WIZO, but the sources found do not describe its political positions on "Israel".

Chabad

Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement

Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Panama. The WJC says there are Chabad centres in Boquete and Panama City.

Israeli state and commercial ties

Diplomacy

• The WJC says Panama voted for the 1947 partition plan. The Israeli foreign ministry dates recognition to January 1949, while BBC News Mundo says Panama was among the first countries to recognise "Israel" after May 1948.
• According to the Israeli embassy, quoted by BBC News Mundo, 13 aircraft were moved from the United States to Panama in 1948 and registered to "Panama Airlines", a company created only for the purpose, to evade the Western arms embargo; the first reached "Israel" on 21 June 1948.
• In 2012 Panama was the only Latin American country to vote against granting Palestine non-member observer state status at the UN.
• In early May 2026 Isaac Herzog made what the Israeli ambassador, Mattanya Cohen, called the first visit by an Israeli president to Panama. According to the Panamanian foreign ministry, in late May 2026 the two governments signed a memorandum on co-operation through MASHAV that involves Israeli private companies.
• In September 2026 President José Raúl Mulino and Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on co-operation in security and artificial intelligence; Panamá América reported that "Israel" would assess Panama's strategy for the Darién. Netanyahu's office said he invited Mulino and the presidents of Paraguay and Bolivia to join the "Isaac Accords" and to follow the US in withdrawing from the International Criminal Court.

Arms

SIPRI records no Israeli arms transfers to Panama.

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.

• May 2014 visit. In April 2014 Barak wrote to Héctor Aparicio, who was arranging his programme: "This is my first ever visit to Panama". He asked for a meeting with the president "to discuss global Geo-Politics" and with ministers responsible for "National Security and Intelligence as well as CyberSecurity activities. The Energy sector. Major National infrastructure projects", and attached a description of his company, Hyperion. Barak's wife, Nili Priell Barak, gave the dates as 10–14 May 2014. Aparicio's draft agenda listed confirmed meetings with the minister of the presidency, Roberto Henríquez, the former finance minister Alberto Vallarino and the businessman Samuel Israel, and pending ones with Stanley Motta of Copa Airlines and the security minister, José Raúl Mulino, now president. He also proposed a meeting with the president to be elected on 4 May. The emails do not show which meetings took place.

Trade

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics lists Panama separately. In 2025 "Israel" imported goods worth $28.5 million from Panama (2024: $48.4 million) and exported goods worth $11.2 million to it (2024: $10.3 million).

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list immigrants born in Panama separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.

Political interference

The 1994 Alas Chiricanas bombing

On 19 July 1994, the day after the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, a bomb exploded on Alas Chiricanas Flight 901 shortly after it took off from Colón for Panama City. All 21 people on board were killed, including three US citizens. Panamá América says most of the dead were members of the Jewish community; the US embassy says 12 of the dead were members of the Jewish community, but gives the total as 20. A group calling itself Ansar Allah, which the US government says was an alias of Hezbollah (and which is not the Yemeni movement Ansar Allah, the Houthis), claimed both attacks in a statement from Lebanon. The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence has concluded that Hezbollah was responsible.

The Panamanian case was closed in 2006. According to Infobae it was reopened in 2017 after new information from "Israel"; according to Panamá América it was reopened in August 2019, and Israeli and US intelligence reports point to Hezbollah. In April 2026 Venezuela's interim authorities extradited a suspect, Ali Zaki Hage Jalil, to Panama. In June 2026 a Panamanian court gave prosecutors 12 more months to complete the investigation, which concerns three foreign suspects.

UN voting

Panama did not vote on the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution in September 2025.

Jeffrey Epstein

• La Prensa reports that the Italian-French investor Jean Pigozzi, who renamed a Pacific island off Coiba "Simca" after buying it in 2012 with the help of President Ricardo Martinelli, sent Epstein photographs of the island in 2013 and invited him to his 60th birthday celebration in Panama.
• On 30 March 2011 Epstein exchanged emails with Peter Mandelson about using a Panamanian company to fund the purchase of a flat in Rio de Janeiro so as to reduce taxes in Brazil and the United Kingdom.

See also

• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Colombia
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Guatemala
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Argentina