Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Peru
Peru: its Zionist-affiliated Jewish community, the Bnei Moshe converts who settled in the West Bank, Israeli missiles and rocket artillery, and a failed attempt to buy Pegasus
Peru has a Jewish community of about 1,900, most of them in Lima; the World Jewish Congress says it "maintains a firm commitment to Zionism".[1] Several hundred Peruvian converts to Judaism, the Bnei Moshe, emigrated to "Israel" from 1991, and most settled in the West Bank settlements of Kfar Tapuach and Elon Moreh.[2] "Israel" has supplied Peru with anti-tank missiles, and in 2025 the Israeli company Elbit Systems won a contract for rocket launchers to be partly assembled in Peru.[3][4]
Jewish community and religious life
History
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) dates the Jewish presence to the Spanish conquest, and says many Iberian Jews were forced to convert by the Inquisition, established in Peru in 1570. German and Russian Jews arrived after independence, and the Hebrew Charitable Society, the first Jewish organisation, was founded in Lima in 1870. In the 1920s and 1930s new bodies included the Sephardic Charitable Society, the Israelite Union of Peru and the Zionist Organization of Peru. In 1938 the government told its European embassies not to issue visas to Jewish refugees; the diplomat José María Barreto issued passports in Geneva regardless and was later recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Around 650 Jews reached Peru during and after the Holocaust, among them the father of the future president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.[1]
The community today
The WJC gives two figures on the same page: "approximately 1,900 Jews" and "about 2,500 members".[1]
- Asociación Judía del Perú: the central body since the 1940s and the WJC's Peruvian affiliate. It coordinates three synagogues and maintains a B'nai B'rith country house, a Hebraica club, a Zionist youth movement and welfare institutions. According to the WJC, the community "maintains a firm commitment to Zionism and works with the World Zionist Organization to promote activities that connect its youth with the state of Israel".[1]
- How far is it Zionist? Strongly. By the WJC's account the community is committed to Zionism and works with the World Zionist Organization.
- Congregations: the German community (founded in 1870), which follows a traditional Conservative rite, and the Sephardic and Romanian Ashkenazi communities, which are Orthodox.[1]
- Colegio León Pinelo: the Jewish school, opened in 1946 by a Hebrew College Committee and attended by most of the community's children.[1]
- How far is it Zionist? The WJC gives no detail of Zionist content.
- Others: the Museum of the Jewish Community of Peru (2014) and a Holocaust and Humanities Educational Center for teachers.[1]
How far is it Zionist? The community, by the WJC's account, is firmly committed to Zionism, runs a Zionist youth movement and works with the World Zionist Organization.
The Bnei Moshe
The Bnei Moshe, known as the "Inca Jews", grew from a group founded by Segundo Villanueva of Cajamarca, who left Christianity and the Seventh-day Adventists and formed the congregation "Israel de Dios" in 1958. In 1967 his followers settled in the jungle in a kibbutz-like community; later some returned to Cajamarca and others moved to Trujillo. A rabbinical court formed in 1989 with Israeli rabbis converted about 60 people in the Moche river at Trujillo and 15 more in Lima. About 300 members left for "Israel" in 1991, and a few hundred more followed up to the early 2000s, most settling in Kfar Tapuach and Elon Moreh in the West Bank. Villanueva died in 2008 and was buried in Jerusalem. A soldier from the community, born in Trujillo, was killed in Gaza in January 2024.[2] The Zionist organisation Shavei Israel says the group "no tiene ni tampoco dice tener raíces judías" ("does not have, and does not claim to have, Jewish roots"), and that all its members emigrated; it says their children serve in the Israeli army.[5]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Peru. The WJC says there is an active Chabad house.[1]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
- The Israeli foreign ministry dates Peru's recognition to January 1949,[6] while the WJC says the two countries have had diplomatic relations since 1957. The WJC also says they signed a free trade agreement in 1998, and that "Israel" sent aid after three earthquakes.[1]
- On 24 January 2011 Peru recognised the Palestinian state, the last South American country to do so, without saying whether it recognised the pre-1967 borders.[7] The political scientist Farid Kahhat quotes Ronald Bruce St John as writing that the government of Alan García kept good relations with "Israel" while expanding relations with the Arab world, and that President Ollanta Humala visited both "Israel" and Palestine in February 2014. Kahhat notes that in a statement of 1 November 2023 Peru condemned an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp, but that its statement on the International Court of Justice's provisional measures in January 2024 did not mention that the case was a genocide case against "Israel".[8]
Arms
SIPRI records Israeli supplies to Peru of 50 OPHER guided bombs (ordered 1996), 516 Spike-LR anti-tank missiles with 48 launchers (2009), 175 Spike-ER missiles (2014) and seven RAM armoured reconnaissance vehicles (2016). In 2025 Peru ordered PULS multiple rocket launchers, which SIPRI records as nine launchers in a $60 million deal for delivery in 2027–28, with three Predator Hawk missiles.[3] In December 2025 the army's arms company, FAME, signed a $60 million contract for an initial batch of three PULS launchers with command, reconnaissance and support vehicles, 90 rockets and three missiles with ranges of up to 300 km. The deal is part of a strategic partnership with Elbit for the assembly and co-production of artillery systems in Peru, and factory acceptance tests are to take place in "Israel".[4]
Surveillance: the Pegasus attempt
According to La República, WhatsApp messages in a prosecution file show that people around President Pedro Castillo sought spyware, including Pegasus, for what one of them described as a parallel intelligence team run from the presidential palace. A retired naval officer was sent to a trade fair in Panama on 11–13 October 2022 to buy Pegasus or other systems, and contact was made with the Israeli manufacturer NSO Group; the attempts failed because the companies only deal with government representatives.[9]
Hezbollah case
On 28 October 2014 police in Surquillo, Lima, arrested a Lebanese man named at first as Muhamad Amadar, citing signs that he had handled military explosives.[10] The man, Muhammad Ghaleb Hamdar, was accused of belonging to Hezbollah; the police report said traces of gunpowder, TNT and nitroglycerine were found in the house where he lived. Prosecutors also relied on a written confession. In April 2017 he was acquitted of terrorism and sentenced to six years for entering Peru on a false passport; the Supreme Court annulled the acquittal and ordered a retrial, and in April 2023 an appeals court acquitted him again, finding the preliminary evidence unlawful and the confession obtained under psychological pressure.[11]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics lists Peru separately. In 2025 "Israel" imported goods worth $38.8 million from Peru (2024: $24.9 million) and exported goods worth $82.6 million to it (2024: $72.4 million).[12]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Peru separately. It includes it under "other countries", and notes that in 2005–06 these were mainly immigrants from Peru.[13]
Political interference
UN voting
In September 2025 Peru voted for the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[14]
Jeffrey Epstein
- The economist Hernando de Soto appears in two documents. In a 2010 email an unidentified correspondent told Epstein that a meeting with him had been "realmente decepcionante" ("really disappointing"); in September 2002 he was on a list of guests for part of Bill Clinton's trip to Ghana, in an email to Ghislaine Maxwell. De Soto told La República: "Yo niego categóricamente relación alguna con el señor" ("I categorically deny any relationship with the man").[15][16]
- Emails of 2002 show the businessman Juan Esteban Ganoza Temple helping Maxwell organise tours and social events, including a visit to the Nazca Lines, for the then Prince Andrew during his visit to Peru. In 2020 Ganoza Temple denied any link to illegal activities.[16][17]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Colombia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Chile
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Ecuador
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 World Jewish Congress, Community in Peru worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 ¿Quiénes son y cómo surgieron los Judíos Incas? El Comercio (Peru), 19 February 2024.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Peter Watson, Elbit Systems y FAME firman contrato inicial para el suministro de sistemas PULS MLRS al Ejército del Perú Infodefensa, 9 December 2025.
- ↑ Shavei Israel, Judíos Incas shavei.org, accessed 21 October 2026 (Shavei Israel-side).
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011 (Israeli government-side).
- ↑ Perú reconoce al estado palestino BBC Mundo, 24 January 2011.
- ↑ Farid Kahhat, La política exterior peruana hacia Israel y Palestina Foro Internacional, vol. LXIV, no. 2, 2024.
- ↑ "El Español", espía del expresidente: "Lo que quiero es intervenir todo" La República, 11 March 2023.
- ↑ Presunto miembro de Hezbollah fue detenido en Surquillo RPP Noticias, 29 October 2014.
- ↑ Poder Judicial absolvió a libanés acusado de ser miembro del grupo terrorista Hezbolá Infobae, 12 April 2023.
- ↑ 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).
- ↑ Hernando de Soto aparece en los archivos desclasificados sobre Jeffrey Epstein La República, 3 February 2026.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Hernando de Soto es mencionado en archivos del caso Epstein: "No sé nada de esta gente" Infomercado, 3 February 2026.
- ↑ Archivos de Epstein mencionan nombres de peruanos Radio Victoria (Arequipa), 3 February 2026.