Jewish Continuity Is not Automatic
In the greatest of ironies, nestled deep inside a country whose name literally translates to “The Savior” is a thriving Jewish community.
During the Shevet Glaubach Center’s ten-day mission to Guatemala and El Salvador this past May and June, my peers and I encountered moments that quietly challenged many of my assumptions about what it takes for Jews not merely to survive in the Diaspora, but to flourish.
I never expected that one of my most profound lessons about Jewish continuity would come from a Salvadoran congregation of only a few dozen families. Yet, thousands of miles from the nearest major Jewish hub, we encountered a community with a fiery passion for Avodas Hashem and an unwavering commitment to overcoming religious challenges created by its isolation.
The Beit Shemaya and Avtalion community was founded in 2005 in the rural town of Armenia, El Salvador. Many of its members converted to Judaism from Christianity; some identify as descendants of anussim, Jews who were forcibly converted during the Spanish Inquisition.
The approximately 150-member community is entirely shomer Shabbos and maintains a mikvah, synagogue and a facility for shechitah, the latter of which we had the privilege of witnessing firsthand. The community also recently hired its first rabbi, Rav Shalom Stitou, a RIETS graduate originally from Spain.
The small campus where we spent most of our first day serves as the communal gathering place for much of El Salvador’s Jewish population. Throughout our visit, dozens of members filed in and out, many of whom were multigenerational families. Although we initially assumed they were solely present to welcome our group, we were informed that communal gatherings of this size occur almost daily.
We watched community members cook, clean the facility and entertain the children, often with remarkable enthusiasm. The community seemed to operate with a shared understanding that every person had a role to play and was part of something larger than themselves.
We encountered a similar sense of communal responsibility among the Or Chadash Satmar community in Guatemala City. Many of its members were Mayan or Christian converts, some of whom had previously been connected to the Lev Tahor group in Central and South America.
Though physically isolated from much of the outside world by the Sierra Madre mountains, they welcomed us with a warmth and enthusiasm that rivaled communities many times their size. They clearly had a profound sense of ownership over their Judaism and a vision for their community’s future.
Observing these communities as an outsider forced me to confront an uncomfortable question: Why do Jews with fewer resources appear more invested in Jewish life than those of us blessed with endless opportunities to get involved?
Part of the answer, I suspect, lies in a version of the free-rider problem: The more people capable of sustaining a community, the easier it becomes for each individual to assume that someone else will do the work.
In El Salvador and Guatemala, every institution exists because someone has actively chosen to sustain it. Every minyan, every class, and every communal gathering relies on the active participation of individuals who know that if they don’t participate, there may be no one to take their place. In such environments, scarcity can force responsibility, and responsibility can deepen commitment.
In America, abundance can produce the opposite dynamic. Those of us surrounded by countless minyanim, schools, youth groups, shiurim and communal organizations can easily assume that someone else will keep them running. The abundance of American Jewish life is a blessing, but it risks fostering a sense of passivity among community members.
One of the greatest dangers facing American Jewish life is not persecution, but complacency.
For thousands of years, Judaism has persisted not because of favorable political conditions, economic prosperity or religious freedom, but because ordinary Jews chose to sustain it. The individuals we met were not passive consumers of Jewish life; they were active participants in building it.
Jewish life is built, not merely inherited. Every generation inherits institutions that survive only if its members choose to sustain them. That responsibility can take many forms: communal chessed, engaging in learning opportunities, or attending minyan. Not everyone must contribute in the same way, but no one should be content to sit on the sidelines.
Commitment sometimes means inconvenience. Sustaining a community requires sacrifices of time, energy and occasionally even pride. No enduring institution is built without them.
Scarcity can foster appreciation, but abundance doesn’t have to diminish it. It’s easy to take communal institutions for granted when they appear to run automatically. Participating in them reveals how much unseen effort is required to keep communities functioning.
What struck me the most during this visit was not simply that Jewish life existed in El Salvador and Guatemala, but how intentionally it had been created. These communities had been built from the ground up and sustained under conditions that seemed impossible to us but had become ordinary features of Jewish life for those who lived there.
As we stood together singing HaTikvah, thousands of miles from Eretz Yisrael, I looked around at the Jews standing beside me. Our families had followed profoundly different paths, yet somehow, we arrived at the same place, bound by the same enduring tradition. In that moment, I couldn’t help but feel a renewed sense of hope in the continuity of our religion.
Spread throughout the Diaspora are small sparks in a sea of darkness, each spark its own thriving religious ecosystem and each testifying to the tenacity of the Jewish people. We have a sizable flame of our own here in America — larger, brighter and better supplied than most. But a flame only survives when people choose to tend to it.
The question is not whether American Jewry has the resources to thrive. The question is whether it possesses the determination to keep the fire burning.
Photo caption: Members of the SGC mission stand alongside congregants of Beit Shemaya and Avtalion in Armenia, El Salvador
Photo credit: Michal Bock
