The Fire Within: Jews in the Amazonian Rainforest

Lorry Salcedo Mitrani's documentary The Fire Within tells the story of the Jewish community in Iquitos, Peru, created in the late 19th century after Jewish men—mostly Sephardic settlers from North Africa—came to take part in the Amazonian rubber boom, marrying local women. Over the years, the group maintained a quiet existence—maybe too quiet, since the Jewish community in the Peruvian capital of Lima wasn't even aware of their presence until the 1980s, sparking a controversy over the authenticity of the Iquitos community's Jewishness: Lima's Orthodox Jewish leaders rejected the Iquitos Jews as not being true members of the faith, but the city's Conservative Jews patiently instructed them in full Judaic protocol while also coordinating formal conversion ceremonies. Many members of the Jewish Iquitos community eventually resettled in Israel, where they made a determined effort to learn Hebrew while assimilating into a very different cultural environment. While The Fire Within skirts some obvious questions about the Iquitos community's acceptance of Jewish culture (including the issues of kosher food, circumcision, and the appropriate observance of religious holidays), it nevertheless presents a compelling real-life story of religious piety through a mix of archival footage/photos and remarkable interviews, offering a fascinating glimpse of a relatively obscure aspect of Latin American Jewish history. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)