Polls show Mexico is poised to get its first Jewish president

Despite having a strong connection to her heritage, the former Mexico City mayor and liberal activist has not made any official statements regarding her position on Israel.

By World Israel News Staff

According to polls, Mexico City’s former mayor and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Claudia Sheinbaum, 61, is the current frontrunner in the nation’s presidential elections slated for the coming year.

If she goes on to win, Sheinbaum would become the first woman – and first Jew – to be ushered in as the leader of Mexico, a country with a population exceeding 125 million.

According to a poll conducted by EnkollSurvey and published last week by El Pais, Sheinbaum is leading center-right senator Xóchitl Gálvez by a margin of 47% to 30%.

Sheinbaum, who won the Nobel Prize for her environmental advocacy in 2007, was elected to serve as mayor of Mexico City in 2018, and focused on bolstering the city’s infrastructure, creating “green” energy,” and fighting the COVID-19 virus.

Her presidential campaign focuses on battling the country’s severe corruption, making Mexico energy-independent, and strengthening underprivileged communities.

Sheinbaum’s grandparents fled Bulgaria in the 1940s to escape the Holocaust. She says she’s connected to her Judaism in terms of political activism rather than religion or tradition but her views on Israel remain unknown.

The Jerusalem Post quoted Tabea Alexa Linhard, a comparative literature professor at Washington University in St. Louis who teaches courses on Mexican and Jewish Diaspora cultures, as saying he believes most Mexican Jews will vote for Sheinbaum’s opponent due to her liberal values.

He also said that Sheinbaum’s ethnic background is not likely to influence the way most Mexicans vote despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the population are Catholics and Jews account for just 1% of the country.