Jewish Immigration To Puerto Rico - First Jews To Arrive in Puerto Rico

First Jews To Arrive in Puerto Rico

According to historians, the first Jews to arrive in Puerto Rico were conversos, Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism and were members of Christopher Columbus' crew during his second voyage on November 19, 1493 to the so-called "New World". Historians believe that Luis de Torres, who spoke Hebrew among other languages and who accompanied Columbus as his interpreter, was the first "converso" Jew to set foot in Puerto Rico. The Jews who arrived and settled in Puerto Rico were referred to as "Crypto-Jews" or "secret Jews".

In 1478, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, established an ecclesiastical tribunal known as the Spanish Inquisition. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms. Hundreds of Jews were killed, and their synagogues destroyed. One of the consequences of these disturbances was the mass forced conversion of Jews.

When the Crypto Jews arrived on the island of Puerto Rico, they were hoping to avoid religious scrutiny, but the Inquisition followed the colonists. The Inquisition maintained no rota or religious court in Puerto Rico. However, heretics were written up and if necessary remanded to regional Inquisitional tribunals in Spain or elsewhere in the western hemisphere. As a result, many secret Jews settled the island's remote mountainous interior far from the concentrated centers of power in San Juan and lived quiet lives. They practiced Crypto-Judaism which meant that they secretly practiced Judaism while publicly professing to be Roman Catholic. Still, since Jews weren't permitted to worship, the Crypto Jews eventually intermarried with Catholics and therefore, Puerto Rico virtually had no Jewish history of which to speak.