The Prophet of the Andes: An Unlikely Journey to the Promised Land

by Graciela Mochkofsky, Lisa Dillman (Translator)

The remarkable true story of how one Peruvian carpenter led hundreds of Christians to Judaism, sparking a pilgrimage from the Andes to Israel and inspiring a wave of emerging Latin American Jewish communities

“If Gabriel García Márquez had written the Old Testament, it might read like Graciela Mochkofsky’s staggering true account of a humble Peruvian carpenter’s spiritual odyssey from a shack in the Andes, via the Amazon, to the Promised Land of Israel with a community of devoted followers.” —Judith Thurman, award-winning author of Isak Dinesen

Segundo Villanueva was born in 1927 in a tiny farming village perched in the Andes; when he was seventeen, his father was murdered and Segundo was left with little more than a Bible as his inheritance. This Bible launched Segundo on a lifelong obsession to find the true message of God contained in its pages. He found himself looking for answers outside the Catholic Church, whose hierarchy and colonial roots embodied the gaping social and racial inequities of Peruvian society.

Over years of religious study, Segundo explored various Protestant sects and founded his own religious community in the Amazon jungle before discovering a version of Judaism he pieced together independently from his readings of the Old Testament. His makeshift synagogue began to draw in crowds of fervent believers, seeking a faith that truly served their needs. Then, in a series of extraordinary events, politically motivated Israeli rabbis converted the community to Orthodox Judaism and resettled them on the West Bank. Segundo’s incredible journey made him an unlikely pioneer for a new kind of Jewish faith, one that is now attracting masses of impoverished people across Latin America.

Through detailed reporting and a deep understanding of religious and cultural history, Graciela Mochkofsky documents this unprecedented and momentous chapter in the history of modern religion. This is a moving and fascinating story of faith and the search for dignity and meaning.

Genres: Nonfiction, Jewish, History, Biography, Judaism, Religion, Female Authors

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 2, 2022

About the author

Graciela Mochkofsky is the author of six books of nonfiction in Spanish. She is a contributing writer for The New Yorker. Her work has appeared in The California Sunday Magazine, The Paris Review, the Jewish Forward, and numerous publications in Latin America and Spain. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library, and a Prins Foundation fellow at the Center for Jewish History. She is the dean of CUNY’s Newmark J-School. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about a group of Peruvians who, to escape poverty and the drudgery of their lives, begin reading the Bible. As they do so they ask questions about inconsistencies between what they’ve been taught as Catholics and what they read in Hebrew Bible (the so-called Old Testament). After a searching journey, one man named Segundo, realizes he’s Jewish. And so begins years of learning, conversion and a life in Israel. Mochfosky’s writing is heartfelt, detailed, well-researched. Who knew such a thing really happen and, according to the author, continues to happen?

[Roger The Penguin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now, this one’s a bit complicated…

As much as it is about serendipity and coincidence as it is about madness and delusion, “the Prophet of the Andes” takes its subject of interest, Segundo Villanueva, as the leader of a cult-turned-religious sect that accidentally discovers Judaism in mid-century Latin America. Villanueva (a.k.a. Zerubbabel Tzidkiya) and his family members, alongside some of his most devoted friends, exiled outcasts, and other failed clergymen, embark on a pilgrimage to the depths of Peru and the Andes Mountains to start a church-cult that seeks to follow the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ down to the letter. But in this strict interpretation of the Bible, they indirectly adopt the practices of Judaism (Sabbath on Saturday, the feasts of passover and Tabernacles, etc.). But the jump into Judaism, then into full-fledged Zionism isn’t so abrupt as I’m probably making it out to be. First, this sect of which is called the Church of Israel of God, then called Bnei Moshe – found at the commune deep in the Andean village outside of the city of Cajamarca they christened with the name Hebron – realize that maybe their Spanish translation of the Protestant bible is much more flimsy than they initially considered; comparisons to García Márquez’s Macondo notwithstanding. Since they’re a sect of Christianity that seeks to follow Jesus Christ’s teachings TO THE LETTER, how else can they do that if not by learning Hebrew? OK, then how do we learn Hebrew? The members of the church ask themselves. It just so happens that there’s a rabbi in Lima who we can talk to. And the story unfolds hilariously (and then tragically) from there…

One thing about “the Prophet of the Andes” I love is that the very beginning of this novel-like work of nonfiction actually takes time to discuss the differences between both the countless of sects that exist in Christianity (Adventist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Protestant, Lutheran, Methodist, etc. etc. ad nauseum), and the major differences between Judaism and Christianity in general. Mochkofsky uses the first 60 pages to highlight how these numerous sects of Christianity had come about, specifically how Protestantism had broken away from the Catholic Church against the indulgences and the political power and supposed corruption of the Church and the Pope; although not a major character in the book, Martin Luther’s eternal aura is omnipresent in the democratization of religion in this narrative, both empowering the people to read the Book for themselves, and indirectly leading us into the missionaries and televangelists of the world, pouncing their religion onto us, perpetually trying to “prepare” us for the Day of Judgment that almost never happens when they think it does… but that’s another story for another day. As a journalist, it is clear that Mochkofsky takes her role as storyteller here seriously, by never treating her subjects here as if they were sufferers of the grandest of delusions, never talking down about them or believing they’re just plain fools. No, Mochkofsky takes the time to explain to the reader how these mini-evolutions and breakings-away from the Churches at different times (which capital-C Church? All of them, none of them, who knows) led to the birth of Segundo Villanueva’s preachings, his commune-church-cult.

Yet it would be inaccurate to call Mochkofsky’s book a completely theological journey, solely focused on the teachings of Jesus Christ as if they existed in a vacuum. Since this is almost never the case – as we’ve seen time and time again in the endless wars and conflicts that have had religion as its main motivator – “the Prophet of the Andes” is thus as political of a book as it is about God, the Church, the Bible, the life and suffering of Jesus Christ. In fact, I’d go as far as to argue that this book is nothing IF NOT inherently political. You see this in the scenes of the book where Segundo Villanueva approaches the enclave (their preferred word for it is “colony”, which is telling) of Jews in Lima asking, if not begging, to be converted into Jews. The rabbi, however, does everything he can to dissuade them from becoming “real Jews”, which he argues they can’t even become in the first place, since they are a group made up of mestizos and indigenous Peruvians who “cannot and never will become the true descendants of Israel.” Needless to say, class, racism, sexism, poverty, and the discrimination against the indigenous of Peru are all factored in as obstacles that prevent Villanueva and his ilk from becoming the Jews they believe they were always meant to be.

This doesn’t mean that their loopholes and maneuvers around these rules don’t make up some of the funniest moments in the book, including the circumcision of a full 80-year-old adult; but it is safe to say that the Jewish enclave that made their home in Peru were not necessarily the most inviting of people at this time. It is a striking coincidence that at the moment Segundo Villanueva seeks to learn the true, really true, Word of the Book, the Jews are making their own escape to what we used to call “the New World”: in search of safety in the midst of World War II and the Holocaust, many Jewish families sought just that in the United States, Canada, and parts of Latin America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. And fearing that same exile and genocide, the Jews of Lima became very protective of their faith and their inclusion of new converts, which led to an almost accidental but just as voluntary racism that kept people like the Villanuevas out of the synagogue. It is this amazing coincidence and rather serendipitous clashing of cultures that Mochkofsky squeezes out humorous and poignant moments at the same time. Even within the Hebron sect, personal jealousies and attempts at consolidating power lead to rivalries and betrayals. If Mochkofsky makes one thing clear here, it is the simple fact that religion, identity, politics, and violence are all connected; a truth as simple as the human nature to eat, sleep, and procreate.

Speaking of politics, let’s talk about Zionism. Clearly, Mochkofsky is not shy about addressing the big elephant in the room here. Even before Villanueva’s accidental run-in with real Jews, the sect of Hebron imagined themselves to be the descendants of Israel (or Jacob) who were in exile from the land to which they belonged, translation, the Kingdom of Judah that had fallen twice to two different colonial powers, the main one being Rome. Segundo and company believed in this idea so absolutely and so extremely that they managed to get to the Levant area and Israel itself by the 1980s. In the case of his son, Josué Villanueva, some of the followers were able to experience “the land of milk and honey” for themselves, only making their sentiment of “returning home” all the more justifiable and valid. Since the Villanueva pilgrimage had taken place in the early 1980s, clearly the dreams of Theodor Herzl and the Zionist movement had already bore the fruits of their label in the creation of the State of Israel, but it’s frankly impressive that the Villanuevas came to the same exact conclusions themselves, in an astonishing example of parallel history finally intercepting.

However, despite how impressive it is, the Bnei Moshe clan in the no-man’s-land of Cajamarca eventually become pawns to the overarching Zionist Movement that stopped at no cost to not only reunite the mythical “lost tribes” of Israel (via a method of attributing racial/linguistic/customs-practicing purism that would make the conversos-persecution during the Spanish Inquisition seem tame and well-founded in reality) but to essentially remove Palestine from the face of the Earth. As Mochkofsky writes, “even the Israeli army’s weapons were sacred.” And as a propaganda outlet, the Zionist movement in the middle of the twentieth century couldn’t be more effective and efficient, as Mochkofsky highlights in the book’s second part, and Bnei Moshe goes from being a fringe group of Peruvian zealots in the jungle to another tool in the push for the State of Israel. Even when they do eventually reach Israel, the rest of Israeli society looks at them as outcasts, as “the other”, in the same way the rest of Israeli society had looked at Ethiopia Jews and refusenik Jews as “the other”.

If the rabbi from the Lima Association of Jews didn’t accept them in Part One, then the Israeli ambassadors surely would find the Bnei Moshe/Israel of God/Hebron/Segundo Villanueva convenient for their uses. But they weren’t “real Jews” according to the racist rabbis, right? (Side note: in Joshua Cohen’s brilliant novel “the Netanyahus”, the fictional Ben-Zion Netanyahu, the patriarch that made Bibi possible, pitches an alternate reality in which the Jews of the Spanish Inquisition had converted to Christianity in droves out of their own volition – could the Bnei Moshe be the crypto-Jews that the Israelis purported them to be? Answer: No, but something else entirely.). Well, it turns out that none of this sense of “purity” matters, and in the interest of creating an organization and philosophy of thinking, purity is perfect to play both sides… To call this a complicated premise would be an understatement, but Mochkofsky here makes it look so easy!

This leads me to my final question: what is Mochkofsky trying to tell us with this book? That the Jewish diaspora has influenced the course of Latin American history as far as we know it, and thus indispensable? I don’t think anyone’s arguing that. But in my humble opinion, I find this book’s scope and span to go beyond just the confines of Latin America in particular. No: the fact that the Bnei Moshe was a Peruvian-founded organization speaks merely to the grand coincidence that is narrated in this book. Perhaps if I were Graciela Mochkofsky (and I don’t mean to be presumptuous, so please take the following with a grain of salt), I would perhaps call this book something else; something along the lines of THE ACCIDENTAL ZIONIST instead the PROPHET OF THE ANDES, for this reason alone: how is one a prophet of something that already exists, of something with a name? (The ironies of this being a Latin American-specific irony has already dawned on me: how does one “discover” a place that thousands upon millions of people have already inhabited and made an entire civilization and subsequent empire out of it?). In other words, Segundo Villanueva was a prophet in the same way that Christopher Columbus was a discoverer; although less nefariously and more genuinely, Villanueva had wanted to follow the Word of Jesus so fervently and so unambiguously that he accidentally became a Zionist, but when the Zionists discovered him, the State of Israel co-opted them into becoming a propaganda outlet that wanted to justify and rationalize to itself and to the rest of the world that Israel does indeed have a reason to exist, even at the behest of the Palestinians and the several Arab states. In my opinion, the ACCIDENTAL ZIONIST became the foil for the supreme plan of God’s Final Judgment, and this supreme plan is more political and IDEOlogical than it is THEOlogical. In addition, it’s also personal, even vehemently so; once the Villanuevas, with their new family name Tzidkiya, finally settle in Israel, they find themselves in the midst of the Israel/Palestine crisis; they arrive soon enough to witness the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Second Intifada, and the rise of the Likud Party and the Netanyahus. In clear journalistic precision, Mochkofsky makes sense of the past to explain the present (which, as of writing this – January 15, 2025 – Israel and Hamas may finally make a ceasefire deal in exchange for the former’s hostages).

But, maybe, just maybe, you could even argue that she isn’t even trying to say anything with the book; she is not trying to cast any aspersions on the Zionist question and its merits; she is merely telling a unique story in the history of the Jews. And staying true to her profession (which has its own issues with confirming a sense of “purity”), she turns a subject matter perfect for her journalistic purposes and gets you, dear reader, to decide for yourself, as great journalism should do (and seldom ever does). Although Mochkofsky’s book is easily accessible and equally entertaining, it is hard to classify. Where does IT belong: Latin American history? Judaica? Zionism studies? The Israel/Palestine conflict? A sociological case study of Andean politics? An anthropological study of a fringe sect of Christianity? Just like questions and matters of faith, the interpretations are endless, and the questions themselves become a form of cancer; in the light of new talks for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, I am not sure whether to hold out hope for the end of this war and a two-state solution, but it is books like this that remind us why conflicts like these exist and why the religious impulse is deeply and uniquely human, and thereby deeply and uniquely tragic to us. We have been condemned as such, regardless of whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, etc. etc. And yet at the same time, we are condemned to seek a return to somewhere, to something; there is an intrinsic yearning in the human spirit that not only is responsible for Zionism, but even for great things, like the endless seeking of knowledge (Why do people read and write books, in the first place?). The book is just like Segundo Villanueva and company, and thereby the book here is just like that aforementioned process to which we as humans are constantly and perpetually condemned: it (and we) contains multitudes, defies easy classification, contradicts oneself, and importantly, tries to make sense of the nonsense. Until we have more nonsense to figure out.

Needless to say, this is an extraordinary book that deceptively presents very complicated matters in a simple, pedestrian way. Yet this doesn’t take away from the inherent complexity that is instilled in a subject like RELIGION. You tell me you want to make a simple book about God and I will laugh in your face. But as good journalists are good at doing, the balance between simplicity and digestibility and complexity and obscurantism actually leads to breakthroughs, real discoveries, and best of all, the best kind of art.

As she writes, on pg. 165, “They” meaning the Bnei Moshe “were not a lost tribe, nor did they wish to be. They were, simply, an enigma.” And enigmas make for good, if not great, literature.

9/10

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Living in Ecuador, a student of Judaism, this account from neighboring Andeans in Peru intrigued me. It's written in a very simple narrative form, so that younger people could equally benefit from the simple telling of this story of group conversion, Begun by a Catholic turned Adventist, who gradually learns of the differences between Christianity and Judaism. Defying prejudice from the Latin American congregants from Ashkenazi origins who by class and suspicion turned away the indigenous seekers, Segundo Villanueva and his small flock vow to convert and then emigrate to Israel. This is their tale.

The author, a lapsed Catholic born to a Jewish but assimilated Argentine family, naturally perks up her ears when she by chance happens across this scenario about a decade ago. While too much of her take dwells on recapitulating the basics of the conflict which in the study of the Bible created the first inklings of discontent within Segundo, this does enable readers completely unfamiliar with both or either faith to comprehend the discomfort within Segundo which impelled him to eventually reject the message that Jesus was a messiah, and furthermore one who needed a Second Coming to fulfill his mission, both, of course, assertions which Jews deny. Messianic halfway compromises wouldn't work.

Thus, through great labor physical, mental, and spiritual, the Bene Moshe group, aka Inca Jews, won their long campaign to settle in Judea and Samaria. This angered many who feared an influx of cagy converts attracted to the generous welfare state funding extended to those making aliyah to Israel. This fascinating episode raises many debates as intermarriage, assimilation, and acceptance of those asserting very attenuated ties to Sephardic conversos hundreds of years ago complicate who's correct in qualifying as of Jewish descent, and thus citizenship, in Israel today. It's a topic worth a closer look.

I'd footnote the writer's use of "cholo," which means not in the Andes what it's come to signify in North American Latino communities as slang. And her assumption that every Chabad adherent went along, especially after the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, with his identification as Moshiach. But that overall, dealt the varying amounts of coverage given key content, an informative presentation.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew? A found Bible led Sergio Villanueva on a spiritual journey for decades, and his followers in the Peruvian highlands mirrored his move into a life of the Book. A disregard for the Sabbath and graven images leads him away from his Catholic faith; the contradictions in the Gospels and the Church’s disregard for Old Testament laws, like curcumcision, leads them away from Christianity. They learn Hebrew for a better understanding of the Book—and began practicing Judaism, but the country folk are not accepted by Peru’s tiny, cosmopolitan Jewish community.

Curiosity and persistence fueled the later stops in Villanueva’s extraordinary journey, both characteristics found in abundance by author Graciela Mochkofsky. And thankfully so. The book is a joy.

[kaitlyn!]

um i said i wouldn’t write reviews here but i have too many thoughts to reduce them to a star rating. i feel like this didn’t really help me with my summer goal of finding god but maybe i need to read the bible. everything is so connected! religion colonization poverty nationalism language so much religion…. please email me to hear my full review.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reporting is thorough and the story is appropriately strange, especially the way that Zionism intersects with the Peruvians, but if you don't really care if the Bible or the Torah is True or not, it's kind of hard to care about whether a random dude in the mountains does.

[Umar Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A fascinating story about Peruvian peasants who followed a unique path from Catholicism into a form of Judaism until official conversions and migration to Israel. I will make an editorial note - this is basically a tale of Protestantism, meaning Biblical liberalism, discarding tradition, and individual interpretation. This ultimately led the leader from Catholicism to various fringe forms of Protestantism to Rabbinical Judaism to a Karaite understanding. The more interesting takeaway for me is the younger generation, who are now largely living in settlement towns and Jerusalem and out-marrying.

[Joanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting story, but the book rambles. Badly written; badly edited. Not worth the time.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is packed with history of both the Andes and Zionism. I learned so much.

Notes:

The Spanish massacred the Incas of Peru and converted them to Christianity, forcing them to accept the “one true God”

After Perus independence in the 19th century, they were still loyal to Rome, and Catholicism

Different sects of Christianity came to be by different interpretations of the Bible, all preaching to be the authentic church of god. Methodist, Lutheran, Protestant, etc. It was a fight against the Roman Catholic Church, who tried to dominate, especially in Peru, and persecuted those who looked elsewhere.

Pg 109 After the Seleucids and Romans forbade Judaism and destroyed the temple..”As an act of self-defense, the Jews renounced proselytizing, deemed the Greek translation of the Book illegitimate, and made their laws stricter. To seal the matter, Jewish priests transcribed their oral laws in a series of books known as the Talmud. The sect led by Jesus, however-arising during the short period of independence-continued advocating the opposite strategy: carry the faith to all men.” For a certain time, the religion was still Judeo-Christianity.

109, when the Gospel was written because the Talmud was too strict…”Those Gospels, the French historians explained, had not been written by direct witnesses, but they were the only existing written sources on the life and teachings of Christ. The authors did not doubt their veracity but warned that they could not be taken as exact accounts and should be treated with cau-tion. They reflected the preoccupations of an early church that was separating from Judaism, and as a consequence some events had been deformed.”

722 BCE, the Assyrians exiled the 12 tribes of the Kingdom of Israel. The Messiah, as some Jews believe, is the only one who can bring them back to the land. Zionism is the attempt of taking the Messiahs actions into their own hands.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing story about a Peruvian man, Segundo Villanueva who grew up Catholic, discovered that Catholic tradition was inconsistent with the Bible, and then bounced from sect to sect until he founded his own sect with a few followers. After learning a little more, he decided that Christianity as a whole was wrong, and that Judaism was preferable, beginning a spiritual journey that led to him and dozens of followers converting to Judaism and moving to Israel.

Most of these followers adjusted well to Israeli life; however, Villnueva himself ultimately found Judaism unsatisfactory as well, after realizing that the Judaism of the Talmud and later codes differs dramatically from that of the Hebrew Bible. As a result, the story ends unhappily for him; because of his rejection of Judaism as it is typically practiced, he became isolated from his former followers.

This last part of the story raises a couple of questions. Since the founder was knowledgeable about Jewish law before converting in 1989, how could he not have known of the difference between the "Oral Torah" of rabbinic interpretation and the "Written Torah" of the Bible? And why was he unable to find a new home with the Karaite community (which is more literalist than rabbinic Jews) or the Samaritans? I could not figure out the answers to these questions, probably because Villanueva died in 2008, fourteen years before this book was published. I suspect that if he was alive while the author was doing her research, he would have been able to answer these questions, and this (otherwise excellent) book would have been even better.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1944, at the age of 21, Segundo Villanuena sought to avenge his father’s murder. His only real inheritance was a trunk, which he hoped would hold either an inheritance or a message from his father. What he discovered changed his life: The trunk contained a Spanish Bible, something Segundo had never seen before. Although raised Catholic in Peru, the Bible had not been part of his religious education. As Graciela Mochkofsky shows in her fascinating work “The Prophet of the Andes: An Unlikely Journey to the Promised Land” (Alfred A. Knopf), reading that Bible led Segundo not only to reject vengeance, but to convert to Judaism. In fact, he led a large group of Peruvian spiritual seekers to Judaism and many of them later emigrated to Israel.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...

[Luggage · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! I didn't want to stop listening. Came up with more housework to do just so I could find out what would happen next. Fascinating story of a religious discovery, textual fundamentalism, and the search for the "essential." The titular "prophet," spent his life peeling back religions like layers of an onion to uncover the core. The thing about onion cores though is that, while they look different, they don't taste all that different from the other layers. If you treat religious dicovery like an onion and aren't satisfied by the outer layers, how can you expect to be satisfied by what's at the center? However, the journey was different for others in his circle, with many feeling fulfilled by conversion to Orthodox Judaism.

[Paula Gantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book that details the depths of faith and longing that can motivate people. It is extremely well-written and translated, but marred somewhat by politicized comments in its last pages. Nonetheless, it is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Israel.

[Daniel Farabaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating account of a man's quixotic quest to find the original source of God's message in Christianity and Judaism. His journey is interesting in his intellectual quest and in his physical movements. This was a much wider ranging analysis then I expected.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting story very well told. A peasant in Peru seeks to avenge his father's murder. But before acting on this he finds his father's copy of the Bible (which Catholics are apparently discouraged from reading) in a chest. And begins a voyage to Judaism and - eventually - Israel.

[John Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story that would otherwise be lost to the noise of history. Exactly what the cover and back matter promised, takes readers from Peru to Israel by an intriguing path.

[Ellie Sheinwald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fantastic (true!) story of a Peruvian man who finds Judaism, inspires thousands of others to convert, and make aliyah. Highly recommend to Jews and non-Jews alike.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[Beth Janus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself is fascinating, but it is not well written. There were too many people to keep track of. I would have liked it if she focused on fewer people.

[Xin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Randi Mrvos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply emotional and inspiring. This is the journey of a man who courageously dedicated his life to finding a true religion.

[Dori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazingly well researched book about Segundo Villaneuva a Peruvian man, who was raised Catholic but after reading the bible (which the was frowned upon by the catholic church) slowly began a spiritual journey and ultimately became a Jew and led thousands of Peruvians to convert to Judaism. I gave the book 3 stars, because at times it provided too many details for me to take in, but it is nonetheless a very moving, interesting story.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating story about how Segundo Villanueva, a poor man in a remote village in Peru started to question his Catholic faith after reading and studying the Old Testament on his own. He became a Seventh Day Adventist and then formed his own church until he discovered Judaism. Hundreds of his family and friends followed him on a pilgrimage through the Andes to a West Bank settlement in Israel and back to Peru where he inspired a wave of new Jewish communities across Latin America. Different than the story of the descendants of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism but still secretly practiced Judaism and different from the "lost Jewish tribes" in Ethiopia and Uganda, this unique Jewish community raises all sorts of questions about who is a Jew and who is entitled to conversion. It was difficult to keep track of all of the characters and I wish it had read more like narrative non-fiction. In the hands of a skilled writer, I think this could be fictionalized into a novel to make it more accessible and compelling for a wider audience. This is a story that definitely deserves to be told.

[Jeffrey Dandoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a remarkable feat of journalism and storytelling. The author takes us in and out of a variety of the worlds, beginning with the indigenous people Peru. We are swept up into Seventh-day Adventist missiology, peasant and political life in 19th-century and 20th-century Peru, new settlements in both the Andean rainforest and the Israeli occupied territories, Orthodox Jewish conversion, and the witness of faithful believers whose reliance on the Bible and the Torah builds a life for people whose poverty gives them little else. The stubborn courage of this colony of religious folk and its leader makes for a story that transcends the idiosyncratic particulars in it. Mochkofsky uses those details to weave a fascinating narrative. The heroism here is manifest as universal and an inspiration to us all.