Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Nicaragua
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Nicaragua: its small Jewish community, Israeli arms for the Somoza dictatorship and the Contras, and the breaks in relations in 1982, 2010 and 2024
Nicaragua has a Jewish community of about 175.[1] "Israel" was the main arms supplier of the Somoza dictatorship, and after the Sandinista revolution of 1979 it armed the US-backed Contras.[2] The Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega suspended relations in 2010 after the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla,[3] restored them in 2017,[1] and broke them off in October 2024 over the war in Gaza.[4]
Jewish community and religious life
History
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) says the first Jews came from France in the early 19th century, and a permanent community formed in the 1920s, mostly in Managua, reinforced by immigrants from Eastern Europe in 1929. It peaked at about 250 in 1972; many left after the Managua earthquake of that year.[1]
Accounts of the community under the Sandinistas conflict:
- The WJC says the Sandinista government, which took power in 1979, was "openly hostile" to Jews, "in large part due to Israel's past support of the Somoza government"; that it expropriated the synagogue and other community property and imprisoned the community's leader; and that most Jews then left. It says Jewish life revived after Ortega lost the 1990 election.[1]
- Milton Jamail and Margo Gutierrez wrote in Middle East Report in 1986 that the charge of antisemitic persecution was one of the two main forms of Israeli hostility to the Sandinistas, useful to the Reagan administration. A May 1983 report by the Anti-Defamation League that the community had been forced into exile was based almost entirely on two exiles who had worked with the Somoza regime. The US ambassador, Anthony Quainton, reported in late 1983 that "no verifiable evidence" supported claims of antisemitic policies, and after a visit in July 1984 the New Jewish Agenda concluded that "charges of Nicaraguan government anti-Semitism cannot be supported".[2]
Herty Lewites, who was Jewish, was mayor of Managua in 2000–05 and a presidential candidate in 2006. The WJC estimates about 175 Jews in 2024, about 130 of whom converted in the previous 15 years, mostly descendants of conversos.[1]
Organisations
- Congregación Israelita de Nicaragua (CIN): the WJC's affiliate. There is no synagogue apart from Chabad's, and services are often held in private homes.[1]
- How far is it Zionist? No information. The WJC describes no Zionist activity.
How far is it Zionist? No Zionist organisations are recorded by the WJC.
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Nicaragua. The WJC says Chabad in Managua offers daily meals and holiday events and houses a kosher restaurant called Jerusalem.[1]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
- The WJC says Nicaragua was the second country to recognise "Israel".[1] Jamail and Gutierrez wrote that Anastasio Somoza García had given agents of the Haganah diplomatic cover to buy arms in Europe before the state was founded.[2]
- Relations were suspended in 1982.[2] The Israeli foreign ministry's 2011 list records their renewal in October 1992, with Nicaragua covered from Costa Rica, and their suspension in August 2010.[5]
- On 1 June 2010 the government spokeswoman, Rosario Murillo, announced the suspension of relations over the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla, citing its "illegal nature".[3][6] On 4 June the foreign minister, Samuel Santos, formally told the Israeli embassy in Costa Rica that the suspension would last "hasta que cesen las actuaciones agresivas en contra del pueblo palestino y árabe" ("until the aggressive actions against the Palestinian and Arab people cease"), and said trade would not be affected.[7]
- The WJC says relations were restored in 2017, and that they worsened after Nicaragua sued Germany at the International Court of Justice for complicity in what it called genocide by "Israel".[1]
- On 11 October 2024 the National Assembly unanimously approved a declaration asking the government to consider breaking relations with "el gobierno criminal de Benjamín Netanyahu" ("the criminal government of Benjamin Netanyahu").[8] Murillo, by then vice-president, said Ortega had instructed the foreign ministry "proceder a la ruptura de las relaciones diplomáticas con el gobierno fascista y genocida de Israel" ("to break diplomatic relations with the fascist and genocidal government of Israel").[4] On 14 October Presidential Agreement 181-2024 revoked the appointment of the non-resident ambassador to "Israel", Óscar Obidio Cubas Castro; the Israeli embassy in Costa Rica said it had received no formal notice.[9]
Arms and the Contras
- Jamail and Gutierrez wrote that in February 1957 a Nicaraguan delegation negotiated a $1.2 million arms deal with Shimon Peres, then director-general of the Israeli defence ministry, and that over two decades "Israel" sold Somoza's forces tanks, light aircraft, armoured cars, automatic rifles and ammunition; by the 1970s it accounted for 98 per cent of Nicaragua's arms imports, according to SIPRI. After the United States cut off arms to the National Guard in 1978, Newsweek cited US officials saying that "Israel has become Nicaragua's main supplier of weapons and ammunition".[2]
- In late 1982 "Israel" sent the Contras several thousand AK-47 rifles captured from the PLO in Lebanon, paid for with CIA funds; about 500 went to Edén Pastora via Venezuela and the rest to the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN). In 1984 NBC reported that "Israel", "at Washington's urging, has armed a quarter of the rebel army", and Time that Israeli intelligence experts had helped the CIA train the Contras. In April 1984 the Israeli foreign ministry denied supplying them.[2]
- SIPRI records 25 second-hand Staghound armoured cars delivered in 1957, sold "as reward for Nicaraguan arms deliveries to Israel in 1948", and two Arava transports in 1973.[10]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics lists Nicaragua separately. In 2025 "Israel" imported goods worth $0.8 million from Nicaragua (2024: $0.4 million) and exported goods worth $2.0 million to it (2024: $2.3 million).[11]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Nicaragua separately; it is included under "other countries".[12]
Political interference
UN voting
Nicaragua voted for the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution in September 2025.[13]
Jeffrey Epstein
- In October 2015 Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem told Epstein that after opening a free zone in Santo Domingo and visiting Cuba he would spend two days in Managua.[14]
- In March 2016 Epstein asked Ariane de Rothschild whether she was leaving for Managua on the 25th.[15] Larry Visoski sent him flight times between Palm Beach and Managua[16] and a trip-support company's threat assessment rating Nicaragua 3 out of 5.[17] Epstein urged her not to drive on her own "in managua or any other part of nicargaua", saying local police were "easily corrupted and even my best relationships move things at a snail pace".[18] On 26 March she wrote that she would call him from Managua.[19]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Honduras
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Costa Rica
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Guatemala
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 World Jewish Congress, Community in Nicaragua worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Milton Jamail and Margo Gutierrez, Israel in Central America Middle East Report (MERIP), May 1986 (critical).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Nicaragua suspende relaciones diplomáticas con Israel La Prensa (Nicaragua), 1 June 2010.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Nicaragua rompe relaciones con Israel Deutsche Welle, 11 October 2024.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011 (Israeli government-side).
- ↑ Nicaragua suspends diplomatic ties with Israel Ynet, 2 June 2010.
- ↑ Formalizan suspensión de relaciones diplomáticas con Israel La Prensa (Nicaragua), 4 June 2010.
- ↑ Asamblea Nacional de Nicaragua, Rechazamos, repudiamos y condenamos al gobierno genocida de Israel asamblea.gob.ni, October 2024 (Nicaraguan government-side).
- ↑ Embajada de Israel no ha recibido comunicación formal del rompimiento de relaciones La Prensa (Nicaragua), 14 October 2024.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy) (Israeli government-side).
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024 (Israeli government-side).
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Email from Sultan bin Sulayem to Jeffrey Epstein, 12 October 2015, EFTA00714352, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, justice.gov, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from Jeffrey Epstein to Ariane de Rothschild, 17 March 2016, EFTA00831530, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, justice.gov, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from Larry Visoski to Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: times", 22 March 2016, EFTA00831076, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, justice.gov, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email forwarded by Larry Visoski to Jeffrey Epstein, "Nicaragua 3 out of 5", 22 March 2016, EFTA02468291, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 11, justice.gov, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from Jeffrey Epstein to Ariane de Rothschild, "would like you to consider", 22 March 2016, EFTA02468284, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 11, justice.gov, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from Ariane de Rothschild to Jeffrey Epstein, 26 March 2016, EFTA00830790, US Department of Justice, Epstein Files release, Data Set 9, justice.gov, accessed 21 October 2026.