Francisco Rivas Puigcerver

Born in San Francisco de Campeche, Mexico, Francisco Rivas Puigcerver was brought up in a family descended from conversos who had long practiced Judaism in secret. Although the abolition of the Inquisition in 1820 and the promulgation of the Mexican Constitution in 1857 further expanded religious freedoms and lifted restrictions on the immigration of non-Catholics to Mexico, there was still no official Jewish community in the country, and most of those who preserved crypto-Jewish practices continued to do so in private. In his open embrace of his Jewish identity and public pronouncements in his short-lived journal, El sábado secreto (February–August 1889), Puigcerver was thus exceptional in supporting the right to live an openly Jewish communal life in Mexico. Having studied for a time in New York, he lived much of his life in Mexico City, where he directed the Department of Ancient Languages for the Preparatory School of the Mexican National University. A polyglot, he translated a number of Hebrew works into Spanish and also collected a substantial personal library, which included rare books discussing the experience of Jews under the Mexican Inquisition.