While on vacation to Costa Rica this past February I had the opportunity to attend Friday night services at a unique Reform hevurah in San Jose, Costa Rica.
The taxi driver meandered about the hilly and winding San Jose streets at dusk. Myself, my Uncle and two cousins had decided to make a Shabbat at a local synagogue.
The hevurah is called B'nai Israel and is presently located in south Central San Jose at the building Oficinas de Torneca, Avenida 10, frente al Cemetario de Extranjeros. We had to tell the taxi driver several times the location of the shul. In Costa Rica the addressing system for public buildings is not as exact as in the United States, or even parts of Europe, and all travelers to Costa Rica should know that Ticos tell the location of a small business or home by its location to landmarks or distances in meters. Ticos and Ticas are generally handsome, polite, educated and make an effort to learn English.
A security guard in white and navy slacks greeted us from our taxi. The building in front of us was a modest industrial office in a mixed neighborhood with pubs, small homes all in the trademark narrow San Jose avenues and very pleasant night air. We walked up a ramp and around, to a large industrial office that had been cleared and cleaned, and set with benches, a table for Shabbat food, a small library and a bimah. Behind it was a Torah ark.
An elderly expat from Boston with a great tan and blue eyes greeted us. He had bought a house outside of town and was clearly enjoying his retirement. He pointed to a small model of a synagogue in the neo-modern, white style with classical sanctuary windows, indicating that the location for the new B'nai Israel was somewhere in town and would eventually be built. Soon people filed in including a tall, gregarious Hispanic fellow who introduced himself as Rabbi Gonzalo Vega. He had invited my Uncle Sid Lissner to visit the shul; he explained that he was certified by the Hebrew Union College and due to the growing number of congregants, he was the only full-time rabbi.
Other congregants filled in and by the time Shabbat began, a veritable rainbow of Jews had filled in the sanctuary. One retiree introduced himself as a former Highland Park, Illinois resident, my hometown. Costa Rican Hispanic families with their children bustled beside Tico Polish Jews whose ancestors had likely arrived a century ago; the descendants of Chinese and Hispanic Costa Ricans who had adopted Judaism, Los Angeles expats, and a Caribbean African Costa Rican who arrived in a splendid blue kippah and suit.
An extra surprise was the co-rabbinate of the evening, the team of Rabbi Vega and a Rabbi Rubin from Los Angeles who spoke in English, Spanish and Hebrew. The Amidah and Shma were embellished wonderfully with Jewish folk songs sung from the printed and bound B'nai Israel prayer book by the Rabbi Rubin and his beautiful Rebbitzon. The emphasis of the evening was on Jewish unity and a feeling of beauty which transcended race, business, location, and religious orientation. The sermon was all-inclusive and both Rabbis interpreted Parshat Tetzeh in spirited d'varim and asked questions of the congregants.
Services finished on a very positive note and oneg was served afterward.
We were enthralled with the successful history of Jews in Costa Rica, starting with Sephardim who by and large assimilated with the offer of anonymity and good trade promised by the Costa Rican and Central American Spanish colonies. I do not know of any record of the Inquisition ever reaching Costa Rica, a sort of hinterland of the Spanish main until the early 1800s.
Undoubtedly some pockets of anusim survived in Costa Rica; the Magen David is a popular symbol in Costa Rica. I saw it worn several times as an earring, by a hotel reservation girl with Polish Jewish features and a necklace for Costa Ricans (or Ticos/Ticas as they call themselves) of different ethnic backgrounds. While at a rain forest in south central Costa Rica I saw a female cook with short, round Sephardic and Indian features wearing a large gold magen david around her neck. I smiled and said "Shalom", pointing to her necklace. She smiled sheepishly and looked at the sky.
It is worth commenting on because I have rarely seen the Jewish star worn by apparent non-Jews in such frequency in such an apparently non-Jewish area as Costa Rica; yet the hidden Sephardic element to much of life in Latin America cannot be dismissed, as well as numerous Evangelical Protestant movements with Hebrew or Jewish emphasis. One need only look in the San Jose yellow pages and see a surprising profundity of Cozens, Levis, Goldberg and Levitskys, some of which may be due to intermarriage with non-Jews. It is worth noting that the former Prime Minister of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, has a Jewish wife and children, and Costa Rica has always had a cordial relationship with Israel.
Sinagoga B'nai Israel Oficinas de TORNECA, Avenida 10.
Frente al Cemetario de Extranjeros. 386-1666 (Country Code Costa Rica).
B'nai Israel at http://www.bnei-israel.org.
Rabbi Vega can be reached at gonzalo.vega@cr.sykes.com