Who is her Rabbi?
The 61-year-old Sheinbaum was born in Mexico City to Mexican parents, but her grandparents came from Europe. In the 1920s, one set of grandparents, identifying as Ashkenazi Jews, emigrated from Lithuania. Two decades later, in the 1940s, her other grandparents, Sephardi Jews, went to Mexico from Bulgaria.
While unaffiliated with any Jewish organization or synagogue in Mexico, Sheinbaum, who defines herself as not connected to Judaism and not practicing it, recalls celebrating the Jewish holidays with her family during her childhood.
Addressing a gathering of Jewish women in 2018, she expressed pride in her heritage, saying she’s proud of those origins while reminiscing about her upbringing, noting, “We celebrated all the holidays at my grandparents’ house,” and sharing several fond memories connected to those occasions.
Mexican-Jewish news outlet Enlace Judio published excerpts of Sheinbaum’s speech in 2018.
“Both my last names [Sheinbaum and Pardo] are of Jewish origin,” she said. “My paternal grandparents emigrated from Lithuania, and my maternal grandparents were Sephardi, from Bulgaria,” she pointed out.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-761772