The Jews of the Andes

The tiny Arauca Indian village of Chimpay perches high and inaccessible in the Patagonian Andes, on the border between Argentina and Chile, and the Seventh-day Adventist missionary who made his way up to it one day in 1935 must have rejoiced to be bringing religion to so remote a cranny of the world. He could only have been amazed at what he found: a community of Indians who had no Bible and could not read it if they had, although they observed the Sabbath and' knew much of Moses' teaching. He settled among them for several months, pieced together the origin of their biblical belief. A group of Peruvian Jews from Lima fled the Inquisition some time in the 16th century, crossed half a continent and settled in the Patagonian mountains; there they had taught their faith and observances to Indian farm hands.

The Prophecy. When the unknown Seventh-day Adventist climbed down the mountain, he left some Bibles in Chimpay, and the Indians began to study the Torah and live by it. Eleven years later, a Chilean Jew named Santiago Martinez visited Chimpay, gave the Indians real instruction in Judaism, and told them that the children of Israel had completed their millennium of suffering for having forsaken Jehovah and were soon to return to Zion to await the coming of the Messiah. The Araucanians observed Jewish dietary laws, feast and fast days, separated men and women for worship, even broke down their tribe into classic biblical castes. They elected a leader, one Luis Bravo, who met biblical qualifications: strong, healthy, married, with at least one son. And though they did not call themselves Jews, but members of the "Israel Church of the New Covenant," they yearned for contact with real Israelites.

One evening in 1948 Luis Bravo tuned in Chimpay's one battered radio and heard electrifying news--the prophecy was confirmed, the State of Israel had been founded. From that moment on, the Indians of Chimpay burned with a single hope: to reach the Promised Land to wait for the Messiah.

Luis Bravo journeyed to Buenos Aires and called at the Israeli consulate, which cold-shouldered him so efficiently that he went back to Chimpay discouraged. But one day in 1954, a wonderful rumor reached the village: a ship with the Messiah himself aboard had landed at Buenos Aires to transport the children of Israel to the Promised Land. Almost all the people in Chimpay sold their possessions to the few who stayed behind and trekked to Buenos Aires, 1,300 miles away.

"And All Together." There was no ship, but there was no turning back either. Silent, the Indians waited at the Israeli consulate to be told again and again that the immigration laws made it all but impossible for non-Jews to go-- to Israel and settle there as immigrants. At the Buenos Aires rabbinate, they were told that they could not become Jews by mass conversion. But they built themselves adobe huts at the village of Carlos Spegazzini some 30 miles from the city, found jobs as masons and carpenters, and took turns sitting impassively in the waiting rooms of the consulate and rabbinate.

At' last, Argentina's Board of Rabbis told them that before they could become Jews they would have to learn Hebrew and Talmudic laws--seemingly impossible, since only a handful of them could read or write. But Leader Bravo went off to the Israel-Argentine Cultural Institute and hired a teacher, 29-year-old Hebrew Professor Schloime Lerner.

For almost two years, fair-haired, blue-eyed Professor Lerner has motored out to Carlos Spegazzini to teach the Indians two nights a week and all Sunday afternoon. "Faith can do wonders," he exclaimed last week. The Indians were proficient in Hebrew, knew the Talmud by heart, and had finally received permission from the Grand Rabbinate in Israel to make individual conversions to Judaism.

Teacher Lerner brought them the good news himself. Assembled in a bare hall, some 60 Indians of the Andes listened without a word, then at a sign from Bravo they began to pray aloud. Only after the prayer was ended did they speak. "We are grateful," said one of the oldest.

"But we must think hard and perhaps wait longer. What if just a few are elected? What if a family is broken up, and husband leaves wife, or children leave parents?"

There was still no word about how many of the 150 new Jews would actually be allowed into Israel, but Luis Bravo said: "Surely the Lord cannot wish that sacred family ties be cut. We will go to Israel, and all together."

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