The response was overwhelming. That's how I learned just how welcoming this community really is.
There are about 3,000 Jews in San Miguel in high season, from September through March, and roughly 1,000 who live here year round. In a town of 174,000, that surprises most everyone, including me when I arrived.
It also became the name of my business. Casa Avra is named for Avrahama, my Hebrew name.
I'm an active member of both Chabad of San Miguel and Shalom San Miguel, the town's Jewish cultural and community center. I run a WhatsApp group connecting Jews across town, and every month I host Shabbat dinners and open-house Shabbat lunches, along with gatherings for the holidays throughout the year.
All levels of observance are welcome here. Partners and spouses of every background are always welcome at my warm and traditional table.
Chabad has been here since 2018. Rabbi Daniel and Rebbetzin Raizel Huebner aren't visiting. They're raising their family here, this is their permanent home, and they answer WhatsApp at any hour (24/6). My adult kids have visited Chabads in more than 30 countries, and this is their favorite. Non-Jewish spouses are welcome. So is everyone, whoever you love.
There's a minyan and traditional services every Saturday morning, Shabbat dinner every Friday night, and classes with both the Rabbi and the Rebbetzin. Raizel is also an extraordinary cook, which I mention because you'll find out anyway.
A religious school with more than 50 children. Kosher meat and wine brought in monthly. Anyone can stop by for a challah, on the condition that you take a second one and give it to another Jewish family. And a Kitchen of Kindness, where people cook for families going through illness or a hard stretch.
If you're wondering whether you could raise a Jewish family here, or you want a full-time Rabbi and Rebbetzin who know and care about you, you do.
The Jewish Cultural and Community Center opened in 2014 in a converted warehouse. It's the closest thing this town has to a great JCC, or to the 92nd Street Y.
Classes, lectures, theater, music, Hebrew instruction, Torah study in both English and Spanish. Poetry readings and a Yiddish film festival. Much of the programming isn't religious at all, and that's the point.
Services and holidays are led by visiting rabbis in the Reform and Conservative traditions, in Hebrew, Spanish, and English. There's an active LGBTQ+ community, and about a third of the members are Mexican families, many of whom converted through the center's own program.
If you want cultural and intellectual Jewish life, an egalitarian service, and a community unaffiliated with any movement by design, that's what this is.
Most people here end up involved with both. I am.
That's a real thing to think about when you're 65 and considering a move.
This community has built the infrastructure for it, and at Chabad it's genuinely organized. There's an emergency contact list. People check in every week on anyone we haven't heard from.
Someone drives you to the hospital in Querétaro. Someone brings food when you're sick. Someone notices you weren't at Shabbat and calls to find out why.
If part of what's stopping you is wondering who would show up if something went wrong, this is my honest answer.
On the end of life. It's a question people ask quietly, and the answer is that it's handled properly here. There's a Jewish cemetery in San Miguel, and traditional burial with a chevra kadisha through Chabad.
I serve as the official Jewish heritage guide in San Miguel for Ayelet Tours. I've researched and written about the history of Jews in Mexico and about the Cohen family, Syrian Jewish refugees who settled here in 1927 and built Casa Cohen, the building still known today as El Arca de Noé, its façade carved with animals and stars of David, right in the historic center.
Read the Full Story of Casa CohenIf you're considering a move, or just visiting, I'd love to invite you to Shabbat, connect you to the WhatsApp group, or simply introduce you around.
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