I am trying to find out about possible jewish settlement in a town
called Jaral del refugio in Guanajuato Mexico.

Greetings!  Since you did not capitalize the "refugio" in your post,
you may be looking for a jewish refuge in or near Guanajuanto.  The
name Jaral del refugio literally means "Jaral of the refuge" and may
pertain to a nearby refuge of a Jewish surnamed Jaral which resided in
Guanajuato Mexico, as opposed to an actual named village.


In searching for combinations of the names you posted, I discovered
information from Shep Lenchek titled "Jews in Mexico, A Stuggle for
Survival" an article in three parts.

Also, there is this mention at the website of Guillermo Lazo:
"The first Delgados began appearing in Mexico around 1746. Ten years
earlier, in Spain, an Antonio Delgado was imprisoned for practicing
Judaism, and his mother-in-law was burned at the stake. That was the
reason I’d been unable to get beyond 1746. The preceding ten years
must have been years of flight and secrecy, escaping the Inquisition
even as they traveled to the Americas. The Office of the Inquisition
followed them to Mexico City. The Delgado and Lazo family
(historically linked) fled to Guanajuato. The Nieto family fled first
to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon (the “New” Lion of Judah), then West Texas
and finally New Mexico."


Searching the term "Guanajuato jews" at Google, it returned the
following two sites which seemed pertinent:

Guillermo Lazo article (his email is at the bottom of aticle)
http://www.cryptojews.com/Lazo.html

Shep Lenchek article (Mr. Lenchek's email is at the top of the
article)
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/slenchek/sljewsinmexico1.html

Searching the term "Jaral Guanajuato" I found numerous references to a
Jaral del Progreso in Guanajuato which may be the place for which you
are looking since "progreso" means "progress" and may indicate a
progressive settlement in thought and action.  One site I found was
http://www.jaralgto.gob.mx/ and, though it is in Spanish (as are most
of the ones returned from that search), you may translate it through a
free online translation service such as http://www.freetranslation.com
 You might be able to contact officials in the area to see if there is
information on Jews in history from that area.

Also, searching "Guanajuato el Judio" which means "Guanajuanto jew" I
discovered many references available at the Google page 
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Guanajuato+el+Judio
and these were also in Spanish, so must be translated.

I hope this information proves to be of assistance.  It seems some
extensive research into that area will have to be conducted by you to
ascertain the exact information for which you are looking.  Good luck
on your search!

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 24 Jun 2002 12:32 PDT

In addition, the comments below concerning the search for "del
refugio" jews Guanajuanto produced other information, and you may view
the search results at
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22del+refugio%22+jews

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 20 Jul 2002 10:27 PDT

Greetings and thank you for your rating of my research.  I am happy
you found leads of which you were not previously aware, and you are
correct on specificity of asking a question: the more detailed you
become, the more specific is the research that is delivered.  Should
you ever require research in other matters, please feel free to
request my services.

thanks, I got a lot of good leads.  I think I need to write a more
specific question next time.

Lynne-ga,

I could find no mention of the exact place name on the web "Jaral del
Refugio", nor any but coincidental combinations of "Jaral and "Jews."
However if you search on

"del refugio" jews

in Google, you'll get some interesting history about a Jewish family
of the name, and it might be that the original information you have
came to you is faulty. I've done a good amount of research in Jewish
history, and one of the worst problems is the lack of standardized
spelling, so if the name "Jaral" came in and out of Yiddish, Ladino,
or Hebrew, it could have easily been garbled.

I am posting this as a comment as I have found a lot of information on
Jews in Guanajuato, Mexico but I could not find any mention of a town
called Jaral del refugio.
 I have sent an email to Shep Lenchek author of Jews in Mexico, A
Struggle for Survival. His web site
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/slenchek/sljewsinmexico1.html
has a pretty extensive history of Jews in Mexico. You may be
interested in reading it while we wait for a reply from him.
If he replies with any useful information I will post it as an answer

Hiya, Lynne-ga...

I looked for names similar to "Jaral del Refugio" in Guanajuato state,
Mexico, but I drew a blank.  It might have been a smaller settlement,
I suppose.

I found two interesting sources about the immigration and settlement
of Jews into Mexico, though.

"The Virtual Jewish History Tour – Mexico, by Isaac Wolf"
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/vjw/Mexico.html

and

"Jewish Communities of the World – Mexico," from The Institute of the
World Jewish Congress (WJC) and Virtual Jerusalem
http://www.wjc.org.il/wjcbook/mexico/

There, you will find some interesting material about the various
"waves" of Jewish settlers in Mexico.

This document http://www.inegi.gob.mx/difusion/espanol/poblacion/definitivos/iter/INITER11.PDF
lists Jaral del Refugio as being a neighborhood in the town of
Acámbaro, so it could be the one you're looking for.  Searching for
pages that had both the name of that town and words related to Judaism
(in both Spanish and English) didn't yield anything that stood out to
me. But perhaps this might serve as a clue for somebody (or maybe
not).

from what i gather, it is popularly known as "El Jaral" even though it
may officially be el jaral del refugio, so that might yield better
results.

also, u may want to offer more money because im sure with a couple
long distance calls someone might point you to a source with the
info...

This page, in spanish, lists all the possible last names that could
derive from a jewish genealogy, and points in the direction of several
other countries:

http://www.mesianicos.net/judios_en_mexico.htm

Maybe a search in the registers of Guanajuato might yield more
information, but it's doubtful that anyone will find more than ehat is
already posted online...