...don't exist--they only stole the land of Israel when the Jews weren't there; that those who call themselves Palestinians have to be driven out or converted to Judaism and that, in the meantime, the Indians are ready to join the Israeli army to defend the justice of their views. (1)

While the Indians expressing these views come from the Trujillo area in north-western Peru, they now live in Israel. They live there because they are now Jewish, having been officially converted by two Israeli rabbis in a whirlwind missionary tour of Peru in mid-2002. The place where the Trujillo Indians submitted to the rule of Orthodox Judaism was Cajamarca, about 400 km north of Lima. The location was appropriate, since Cajamarca was where the Incas capitulated to the forces of European power 400 years ago.

Jewish commentators have been puzzled by and hostile to such a whirlwind conversion routine--ninety Jews in twelve days. (2) Such things are more closely associated with zealous Protestant sects than with the resolutely anti-evangelical religion of Judaism. Judaism has always been an ethnic religion; one becomes Jewish by having a Jewish mother, and conversion bas traditionally been a long and arduous process, taking many years. But while Judaism is not a missionary religion, Zionism is a proselytising venture. What happened in Peru was less the conversion of ninety people to Judaism than their conversion to the Zionist faith.

The Israeli rabbis only agreed to convert those who were prepared to leave immediately with them for Israel. That ninety people were ready to do so speaks as much of their living conditions in Peru as it does of their religious faith in Judaism. Once in Israel, they were taken from the airport by bus and transported to the occupied territories somewhere south of Bethlehem, to take their places in the illegal settlement of Alon Shvut and the smaller satellite settlement of Karmei Zur.

The migration of the Indians to Israel should be seen not merely as a bizarre instance of global mobility, but as an event that exposes the pathology of Zionism and of Israel, especially its contradictory exclusivism, hidden inter-Jewish racism and messianic nature. Much has been written on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, but there has been little attempt to situate this treatment within the internal trends and dynamics of Israel's politics. By asking why the Peruvians were moved and by viewing their future prospects in Israel, I seek to highlight the rigid web of class and racial differentiation that drives current Israeli policy. When looking at current Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, we should keep in mind not just Israel's more immediate `security concerns' but its long-term goals, particularly its demographic war against Arabs, for which it is recruiting people from all over the world.

Before considering the pathology of Zionism in more detail, however, it is important to examine the conditions which led the Indians to convert to Zionism. The original desire to convert had little to do with Israel, and more to do with the erosion of church power, combined with Indian deculturation in Peru. The influence of the Catholic Church has been diminishing steadily and it is estimated that less than 15 per cent of Peruvians go to services these days. However, Protestant churches have hot been able to take up the religious slack because of the disturbed political situation--specifically because anti-government guerrillas had a policy of shooting missionaries. So, instead, many poor Peruvians turned to Catholic-type cults and, initially, this was what the Trujillo community started up as, before its people decided that they were, in fact, Jewish and began to emulate Jewish rites and practices. The adoption of Judaism took place in the 1980s, though it should be noted that it was not until the Israeli rabbis arrived in 2002 that the Indians' Judaism was sanctioned by the international Jewish community.

One can see the adoption of the European religion of Judaism as part of an ongoing strategy of `mestization' (after mestizos-mixed-race Peruvians) among indigenous Peruvians. For Indians, the strategy of hiding or even abandoning their identity makes sense in a country shot through with racial discrimination. Although informal, the colour-coded racism of Peru is very strong; the most privileged Peruvians are Europeans and Asians, followed by mestizos and, finally, Indians and blacks. However, becoming Jewish was not just a ruse they undertook to advance themselves socially while still retaining their cultural heritage. It was a more deep-seated seeking out and embracing of a `successful' western culture, one that entailed a total internal transformation and a rejection of the Indians' own heritage. As one convert poignantly declared on being asked by his Jewish interlocutor about the past magnificence of his Indian culture: `Where are they and their gods now?' (3)

This discarding of their native culture has been fully encouraged by the Indians' Israeli patrons. Once in Israel, even their names were discarded and they were given new, proper, Jewish names. The collective term bestowed upon them--`Inca Jews'--can itself be seen as an insult, a negation of their culture, because it is doubtful that all of them are Incas and many have probably come from other, more numerous, Peruvian Indian groupings. I say `probably' because no effort has been made to find out about their real background; it has been razed clean.

However, despite the easy contempt that Israelis have shown towards them, there is no doubting the devotion that this group holds for their new religion. Back in Peru, they were, as Indians, already marginalised and their Jewish affiliation had actually marginalised them further there, making it harder for them to get employment (since they could not work on the Sabbath) and imposing huge sacrifices on them. Given such a history, their religious fervour is not in question; what is crucial, however, is hot the nature of that fervour, but Israel's deliberate policy of using it to reterritorialise Peruvian Indians into Israeli Jews.

In fact, their story sounds like a parody of the traditional heroic Zionist life-stories--a persecuted and marginalised minority is finally brought into a new life in Israel where its members can walk tall, proud in their Jewishness. What jars on other Israelis is the fragility of this non-genealogical Jewishness, the sense that these people are not really Jewish and, as such, have no right to mouth such anti-Arab sentiments. What they say sounds grotesque and embarrasses Jewish-born Israelis, not because it is different to what the latter say, but precisely because it is the same. This difficulty in accepting the Jewishness of the Incas was even stronger among the established Jewish community in Peru. Here, however, hostility was based more on white/ non-white racism than on genealogy. There was an absolute refusal by the existing Peruvian Jewish community to have anything to do with the Indian newcomers. They have not been allowed inside Peru's Jewish schools, nor have they received religious instruction or any encouragement or assistance whatsoever. In fact,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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