Claudia Sheinbaum, Humanist
I’m kvelling!
South of the border, in Mexico, a smart, educated, liberal woman of Jewish heritage has been elected president. From the persona she presents, Claudia Sheinbaum cares about the environment, women’s rights, promoting peace, and strengthening education. And she calls herself a “humanist.” In her words: “We are both transformers and humanists, we love our country and we want to continue building justice so that there is more peace and security.”
Claudia’s Jewish identity has been called into question by some. Admittedly, she does not emphasize Jewish practice in her life. She is honest about her identity – she connects with Jewish history and culture but not religion.
Her grandparents on her father’s side immigrated to Mexico from Lithuania in the 1920s to escape persecution and for greater opportunity. They were Ashkenazi Jews. Her paternal grandfather was a leftist and politically involved. Her grandparents on her mother’s side immigrated from Bulgaria in the early 1940s to escape the Holocaust. They were Sephardic Jews.
In Mexico, the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews tended not to mix. But both Claudia’s parents were intellectuals, scientists, and political activists. They met at university. Her mother, Annie Pardo, earned her doctorate in biology – a woman in the sciences as quite novel at the time.
Both Claudia’s parents were nvolved in the 1968 student protests in Mexico and politics was the regular meal-time conversation in the Pardo-Sheinbaum home. A number of Claudia’s parents’ friends were jailed for being political activists. On Sundays, Claudia and her parents would bring food to the jail for there friends and meet with them.
Claudia’s parents moved from the Jewish immigrant neighborhoods of Mexico City; Claudia instead grew up in a neighborhood by the university full of professors and students. Claudia’s parents were secular and did not celebrate Judaism at home, but the family spent every Jewish holiday at Claudia’s grandparents’ home.
Many commentators have said that Claudia wasn’t raised Jewishly because the family was not ritually observant or involved in synagogue life. But Claudia’s parents and she were inspired by the history and commitment to social justice that runs through Jewish history and the Jewish community. Like many members of Beth Chai, Claudia represents the intellectualism, community-mindedness, political activism of the modern Jewish community. So, let’s kvell.
