July 24, 2018
Rabbi Isaac Abravanel Sephardic Israelite Center of Cartagena
As we usually try to do in our travels, we sought out the local synagogue. Cartagena does not have a lot of Jews living here. The estimate is about 50; in fact there are only about 2500 in all of Colombia. There are two synagogues in Cartagena. One is a Chabad, which is a more recent addition to many, many cities in the world. The other is a more local synagogue, Rabbi Isaac Abravanel Sephardic Israelite Center of Cartagena.
Many of the Jews in Cartagena are are descendants of Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the inquisition (please see my post on Colombia, Part 1, Cartagena for more on the inquisition), called Marranos or Conversos.
