MEXICO CITY (JTA) — It was during her ultimately successful campaign for Mexico City mayor that Claudia Sheinbaum made a reference to her Jewish heritage. Speaking before a group of Jewish women, she said she was proud of those origins.

“We celebrated all the holidays at my grandparents’ house,” she recalled.

For Sheinbaum, the capital city’s first elected Jewish and female mayor, the reference to her Jewishness was rare. Like many other liberal, secular Jewish politicians around the world, Sheinbaum rarely identifies publicly as Jewish. Despite extensive coverage in the Jewish media, her relationship with her Jewish identity is tenuous.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Her victory was hailed as the feminist highlight of Mexico’s dramatic election season. Sheinbaum’s six-year term no doubt will have a tremendous impact on the lives of the approximately 25 million people who populate the metropolitan Mexico City region.

So Sheinbaum, 56, would prefer to talk about issues like high crime rates or social mobility rather than talk about herself. On the infrequent occasions that Sheinbaum shines the spotlight on herself, she mostly emphasizes that she’s a scientist or a woman. She is a well-respected physics and engineering professor who has helped the UN research climate change.

Her family has no formal relationship with Mexico’s institutionalized Jewish community and she has never taken a political stance from an overtly “Jewish” perspective: She hasn’t made any public pronouncement about Israel or spoken as a member of a minority even though Jews make up far less than 1 percent of the capital city’s population. But her identity still complicated her rise to her powerful new post, which she started Wednesday.

According to sources close to her family, who wished to remain anonymous in speaking to JTA, the Sheinbaums feel more connected to a tradition of political activism than their Jewish heritage.

Sheinbaum’s father, Carlos Sheinbaum, was a Mexican-born chemical engineer who spent much of his life living in Guadalajara, once the home of a Jewish community with a few hundred families. His family, originally from Lithuania, arrived in Mexico during the 1920s, like most of Mexico’s Ashkenazi Jews. Carlos’ father was a jewelry merchant who was involved behind the scenes in the semi-illegal Mexican Communist Party and had to distance himself from it or face persecution. According to Sheinbaum’s mother, Annie Pardo, the family observed the High Holidays, spoke Yiddish and ate Ashkenazi food at home.

Pardo comes from a family of assimilated Bulgarian Sephardic Jews from Sofia who arrived at the port of Veracruz in 1942, barely escaping the Holocaust. She attended elementary school in the Sephardic school of Mexico City, later pursued a career as a biologist and became one of the first Sephardic women to go into Mexican academia. Last week, she received the National Autonomous University Award, one of the most prestigious academic awards in the country, for her studies on lung functions.

Both of Sheinbaum’s parents were heavily involved in Mexican leftist circles of the 1960s — they protested in defense of Cuba, were involved in labor movements and joined in the famous student revolts of 1968 that ultimately resulted in police violence. Although the family lived in the Jewish neighborhoods of Polanco and Condesa, they eventually moved south to be closer to the National Autonomous University, where Pardo worked.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the couple’s second daughter, went to liberal non-Jewish schools and studied physics at the same university as her mother. An expert on climate change, she was part of an international team that won a Nobel Prize in 2007. Like her parents, she was involved in student activism and, in 1998, helped form the Revolutionary Democratic Party — for many years the main leftist opposition party in Mexico. She left the party six years ago to form Morena, or the National Regeneration Movement, with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s new president.

Sheinbaum’s distance from the Jewish community hasn’t stopped journalists and others from noting her Jewish identity. A 2012 article described a deep division in Morena between Sheinbaum and Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, a well-known geopolitics professor, also at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who spreads conspiracy theories about the Jewish billionaire George Soros and has been accused of anti-Semitism multiple times by Mexican anti-discrimination authorities.

Jalife-Rahme, who says he is a founding member of Morena, has accused Sheinbaum of maintaining close ties with Jewish-owned real estate groups, including Grupo Danhos In recent years, Grupo Danhos has taken heat for constructing a series of massive and controversial shopping centers in Mexico City. Illegal real estate construction has become a touchy subject in Mexico after multiple recent earthquakes — but especially after the recent collapse of a new shopping center, Artz Pedregal, in July.

Grupo Danhos’ owner, David Daniel Kabazz, is reported to have built close ties with Obrador when the latter was mayor of Mexico City. His daughter, Elvira Daniel Kabazz, served as a legal adviser to both the developer and Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum has not spoken about these claims, but sources close to her told JTA that she has been a vociferous opponent of Jalife-Rahme within the party. She has tremendous clout in Morena, and since her fight with Jalife-Rahme, he has been relegated to a fringe role — he has backed Morena’s surge in the far left media such as Venezuela’s TeleSur channel, but not as an official party member.

Apart from this, the local news does not touch upon or discuss Sheinbaum’s Jewish heritage — likely how she wants it. </s> MEXICO CITY — Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn into office Wednesday as the first elected female mayor of Mexico City and immediately announced she would dissolve the riot police.

“The police are there to protect the people, and we don’t need a police force to repress them,” said Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum pledged to build cable cars to impoverished slums, and improve bus and subway service.

She also said replacement housing would be built for people who lost their homes and apartments in the 2017 earthquakes.

The previous administration had offered loans for rebuilding, but residents wanted the government to pay for the new units.

Her key promises included reducing crime and enforcing zoning laws, a hot-button issue in the constantly growing megalopolis, where developers routinely build bigger buildings than zoning rules allow.

Sheinbaum, who has a doctorate in environmental engineering, did post-doctoral research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and is a former member of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

She’s also a longtime associate of new leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The only previous female governor for the city of 9 million was Rosario Robles, who was appointed in 1999 to serve out the remaining year term of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas when he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. </s> MEXICO CITY (AFP) - The first woman elected mayor of Mexico City was sworn in Wednesday (Dec 5) for a six-year term leading one of the world's largest cities, in a country with a deep tradition of machismo.

Claudia Sheinbaum, a 56-year-old scientist and environmentalist, rode to victory in the July 1 elections on the same anti-establishment wave that brought her left-wing ally and former mentor to power, Mexico's new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

She echoed Lopez Obrador's fervent anti-corruption message in her inaugural address before the city legislature.

"We are beginning a new era of honesty and eradicating the privileges long enjoyed by top officials," she said.

She vowed to end "the privatization of public spaces" and excessive fines and taxes in the sprawling capital of more than eight million inhabitants, whose greater urban area is home to some 20 million people.

Another woman previously served as mayor of the capital on an interim basis - Rosario Robles, from 1999 to 2000 - but Sheinbaum, who holds a doctorate in physics, is the first woman elected to the post.

Sheinbaum was an early ally of Lopez Obrador, who was himself Mexico City mayor from 2000 to 2005.

She was among the first politicians to leave Mexico's established left-wing party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and join Lopez Obrador's breakaway, Morena, when he formally launched it in 2014.

The following year, she won an election for district mayor of Mexico City's Tlalpan neighborhood, Lopez Obrador's own district and one of the 16 "delegations" that make up the city.

That was her launch pad for her mayoral campaign.

But her rapid rise has not been without controversy.

When a private elementary school in her district collapsed in the earthquake that rocked Mexico on Sept 19, 2017 - killing 19 children and seven adults inside - it emerged that the local government had granted dodgy construction permits to the school's owner, who is today on the run from the law.

A group of victims' families has brought criminal charges over the case, and wants Sheinbaum to face investigation.

Sheinbaum vehemently denies responsibility, and accuses her opponents of exploiting the tragedy for political gain. </s> MEXICO CITY, Dec 6 — The first woman elected mayor of Mexico City was sworn in yesterday for a six-year term leading one of the world’s largest cities, in a country with a deep tradition of machismo.

Claudia Sheinbaum, a 56-year-old scientist and environmentalist, rode to victory in the July elections on the same anti-establishment wave that brought her ally and mentor to power, Mexico’s new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Grinning, Lopez Obrador — himself a former Mexico City mayor — raised Sheinbaum’s hand in a sign of victory after she took the oath of office before the city legislature. It was a potent symbol of the radical shift in Mexican politics, now dominated by the left-wing party he founded four years ago, Morena.

“We are beginning a new era of honesty and eradicating the privileges long enjoyed by top officials,” she said.

“The first thing we will do is put an end to abuses. As of now, we are reestablishing democracy and political freedom.”

She vowed to end “the privatization of public spaces” in the sprawling capital of more than eight million inhabitants, whose greater urban area is home to some 20 million people.

And she promised to fight violence against women, in a country where gender inequality runs deep and more than seven women and girls are murdered each day, according to the United Nations.

Another woman previously served as Mexico City mayor on an interim basis — Rosario Robles, from 1999 to 2000 — but Sheinbaum is the first woman elected to the post.

Sheinbaum, who hails from a family of Jewish scientists, studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, earning a doctorate in energy engineering and going on to work as a consultant for the United Nations.

She was active in the university’s student movement, which rose up against an unpopular series of reforms at the institution in 1986.

She was one of many veterans of the movement to go into politics.

When Lopez Obrador was elected Mexico City mayor in 2000, he named Sheinbaum his environment minister.

She followed the fiery leader when he split with Mexico’s established left-wing party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), to launch Morena in 2014.

The following year, she won an election for district mayor of Mexico City’s Tlalpan neighbourhood, Lopez Obrador’s own district and one of the 16 “delegations” that make up the city.

That was her launch pad for her mayoral campaign.

But her rapid rise has not been without controversy.

When a private elementary school in her district collapsed in the earthquake that rocked Mexico on September 19, 2017 — killing 19 children and seven adults inside — it emerged that the local government had granted dodgy construction permits to the school’s owner, who is today on the run from the law.

A group of victims’ families has brought criminal charges over the case, and wants Sheinbaum to face investigation.

After she cast her ballot in the July 1 elections, a protester shouted “Murderer!” at her as she left the polling station.

Sheinbaum vehemently denies responsibility for the school’s collapse, and accuses her opponents of exploiting the tragedy for political gain. — AFP </s> The first elected female mayor of Mexico City has been…

MEXICO CITY — The first elected female mayor of Mexico City has been sworn into office, and immediately announced she would dissolve the riot police.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum says “police are there to protect the people, and we don’t need a police force to repress them.”

Sheinbaum pledged Wednesday to build cable cars to impoverished slums, and improve bus and subway service.

She also said replacement housing would be built for victims of the 2017 earthquakes.

Sheinbaum has a doctorate in environmental engineering and is a longtime associate of new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The only previous female governor for the city of 9 million was Rosario Robles, who was appointed in 1999 to serve out the remaining year term of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas when he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. </s> MEXICO CITY — A Mexico City borough president said late Thursday that officials from a previous administration ignored warnings that unauthorized construction work on a school that collapsed during the Sept. 19 earthquake had damaged the building structurally.

The school became a symbol of the tragedy when a three-story wing of the building pancaked, killing 26 people including 19 children. Photos over the years suggested an increasingly heavy fourth story had been gradually added to the wing.

Borough president Claudia Sheinbaum said inspectors issued a report in November 2013 and warned the borough’s judicial director at the time that work on the third floor and illegally added fourth floor were “damaging structural elements that affect the stability of the building.”

The privately operated elementary and middle school was apparently allowed to complete the work by paying a fine equivalent to about $1,600 at the time.

Sheinbaum called that “outrageous” and said she has filed a criminal complaint against the former judicial director, a person who held the same post later and “whoever else may be responsible.”

Sheinbaum, who took office in 2015, has said there was unauthorized expansion work at the school since around 2010.

The death toll in the magnitude 7.1 quake has continued to inch upward as the last bodies are pulled from the rubble and now stands at 345.

National Civil Defence chief Luis Felipe Puente said late Thursday on Twitter that most of the casualties 206, were in Mexico City.

Most of the debris has been cleared away from the 38 sites where buildings collapsed in the capital, leaving only a few active recovery efforts.

There were also fatalities in the states of Morelos, Puebla, Mexico State, Guerrero and Oaxaca. </s> Investigative police officers inspect a part of the Enrique Rebsamen school that collapsed during last week's 7.1 magnitude quake in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017. Borough president Claudia Sheinbaum says inspectors warned the borough’s judicial director in November 2013 that work on the third floor of the school and an illegally added fourth floor were “damaging structural elements that affect the stability of the building.” (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Investigative police officers inspect a part of the Enrique Rebsamen school that collapsed during last week's 7.1 magnitude quake in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017. Borough president Claudia Sheinbaum says inspectors warned the borough’s judicial director in November 2013 that work on the third floor of the school and an illegally added fourth floor were “damaging structural elements that affect the stability of the building.” (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexico City borough president said officials from a previous administration ignored warnings that unauthorized construction work had damaged the structural integrity of a school that collapsed during a powerful earthquake.

The death toll from the magnitude 7.1 quake which hit Sept. 19 reached 358 on Friday, as the search continued for bodies in the debris of some downed buildings.

The school became a symbol of the tragedy when a three-story wing of the building pancaked, killing 26 people including 19 children. Photos over the years suggested an increasingly heavy fourth story had been gradually added to the wing.

Borough president Claudia Sheinbaum said late Thursday that inspectors issued a report in November 2013 and warned the borough’s judicial director at the time that work on the third floor and illegally added fourth floor were “damaging structural elements that affect the stability of the building.”

The privately operated elementary and middle school was apparently allowed to complete the work by paying a fine equivalent to about $1,600 at the time.

“The file was closed, with a fine of 21,000 pesos. Outrageous,” Sheinbaum said. She added that she has filed a criminal complaint against the former judicial director, a person who held the same post later and “whoever else may be responsible.”

Sheinbaum, who took office in 2015, had said earlier there was unauthorized expansion work at the school since around 2010.

Another borough closer to the city center also filed criminal complaints against two developers for two buildings that partially or completely collapsed, killing at least three people. The borough of Benito Juarez accused the two firms of having “used low-quality materials, lying and evading the law.”

One of the buildings was only about a year old and advertised its apartments as being structurally sound and quake-resistant. The other, a six story rental apartment building, was apparently built in the last year atop the unreinforced structure of a decades-old four-story building.

The vast majority of the collapses and deaths occurred in buildings constructed under looser regulations prior to a 1985 quake that killed thousands in Mexico City.

However the three buildings cited in the criminal complaints involved more recent construction. The school was started in 1983 but then expanded in the last decade.

Most of the rubble has been cleared away from the 38 sites where buildings collapsed in the capital, leaving only a few active recovery efforts.

National Civil Defense chief Luis Felipe Puente reported Friday on Twitter that the quake’s toll had risen to 358, including 217 dead in Mexico City.

There were also fatalities in the states of Morelos, Mexico State, Guerrero and Oaxaca, as well as Puebla state, where the epicenter was located. </s> MEXICO CITY — Andrés Manuel López Obrador took the reins of governance here on Saturday, becoming the most left-wing president Mexico has had in its modern history — and assuming office at a time of growing frustration among Mexicans and high expectations for change.

In his first speech to Congress, Lopez Obrador pledged “a peaceful and orderly transition, but one that is deep and radical ... because we will end the corruption and impunity that prevent Mexico’s rebirth.”

Tired of the rampant corruption that plagues all levels of government, as well as sky-high violence, Mexicans voted overwhelmingly for AMLO, as López Obrador is known, giving him a landslide victory.

During his campaign, López Obrador vowed to crack down on corruption, called for economic austerity and pledged to slash his own salary — ditching the presidential jet is also in his plans — and cap other public officials’ pay. López Obrador, 64, a former Mexico City mayor, criticized his opponents during the campaign, calling them “the mafia in power.”

Some have even compared López Obrador to Donald Trump for insisting on putting national concerns first. Mexico is Latin America’s second-largest economy and a major trading partner of the U.S.

Many Mexicans have high expectations for López Obrador, who is limited to one six-year term, with no shot at re-election. A recent poll by the newspaper El Financiero indicated he has a 66 percent approval rating, while outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto has only 26 percent.

“His supporters are looking for him to be the president of a new era in Mexico," said Jason Marczak, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. "He will also face the challenge of having to deliver quick wind for supporters who are incredibly anxious and eager of what his presidency might be."

Many crimes committed go unpunished in Mexico, where the murder rate is at a record high. Corruption and crime are not new, but AMLO capitalized on it as a left-leaning populist, campaigning on curbing violence by tackling poverty and inequality, which he vowed to uphold in his speech on Saturday.

In Mexico, even those who did not vote for him are expressing hope that he will bring positive change.

Graciela Romero, a business owner in a middle-class Mexico City neighborhood, is a supporter of the center-right PAN party. Her top issue is the economy, and she's upset that she has had to increase the price of the fruits and vegetables she sells to counter rising fuel prices.

“We are a rich country, yet we pay so much for gasoline,” she said.

López Obrador plans to revive Mexico’s oil industry by building a new refinery.

Nearly all of Mexico’s massive fuel imports come from the U.S. The refinery is also part of his agenda to focus on projects in the county’s more impoverished and underdeveloped region in the southeast, including his home state of Tabasco.

Jesús Hernández Tolentino, 48, a taxi driver from Mexico City, rents the car he uses for work at $15 a day. After paying for gas, his daily income is around $11. He said the price of gasoline was going up under the government of Peña Nieto.

“López Obrador has mentioned he is going to build a refinery and that the price of gasoline is going to decrease, and that is what we are hoping for,” Tolentino said. He has supported López Obrador’s political party since it was founded in 2014 and voted for him in all three elections he ran in.

Nervous investors have watched López Obrador’s transition period closely. Weeks before taking office, markets were rattled by announcements that the incoming administration would cancel a partially built $13 billion airport and impose limits on bank commissions.

AMLO tried to assuage those worries in his inaugural address.

“I promise, and I’m a man of my word, that the investments of foreign and international investors will be safe, and we will even create conditions that will allow them to get good returns,” he said, “because in Mexico there will be honesty, rule of law, clear rules, economic growth and confidence.”

But he made clear his agenda trying to narrow the nation's inequality.

“We are going to govern for everyone, but we are going to give preference to the most impoverished and vulnerable,” Lopez Obrador said. “For the good of all, the poor come first.’”

The rise of López Obrador comes at a time when Latin America has been moving towards right-wing leaders.

López Obrador campaigned for over 15 years as a leftist, defending the poor and was elected under his own political party. Traditionally Mexican politics were dominated by three parties: the centrist PRI, the conservative PAN, and the leftist PRD.

But it was the MORENA party that won Lopez Obrador a landslide victory. His MORENA party also won a majority in Congress, allowing him more freedom to change policy.

“He has enormous power,” said Eric Olson, a director at the Seattle International Foundation and advisor to the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Hopefully, he will use it for the good. But those are always risky situations as well.”

A key move to help combat corruption would be to have an independent attorney general, said Olson.

“That proposal has been on the table for a long time. But it’s not clear yet whether he will accept that the attorney general will be independent of the president,” he said.

A new NAFTA deal signed on Friday at the G20 meeting — called United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) — cleared a major obstacle for López Obrador, allowing him to focus on his domestic agenda. López Obrador had been a critic of the 1994 NAFTA, saying it had not done enough to improve the lives of Mexican workers.

But recognizing the importance of economic and financial-market stability, he praised the renegotiated USMCA deal.

The first foreign dignitaries that Lopez Obrador greeted as he took office were U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump.

“I want to say that since July 1, the day I was elected, I have received respectful treatment from President Donald Trump”, Lopez Obrador said.

How López Obrador handles relations with Trump, who has sparred with Mexico over calls for a border wall, will be closely watched.

The recent migrant caravan, that has resulted in over 5,000 Central Americans camped out in a sports complex in Tijuana, recently presented López Obrador with a difficult task — appease Trump while upholding his position of defending the poor.

AMLO signaled on Tuesday he would be willing to house the migrants on Mexican soil while they apply for asylum in the U.S. — something Trump has demanded.

He also called on Trump to contribute to development projects to help create jobs in Central America to help stem the flow of migrants.

If Central American migrants continue to make their way to Mexico in large numbers for years to come, it could erupt into a political crisis for López Obrador.

But for the majority of Mexicans, Central American migrants are not top of mind.

Vanessa Calderón, 22, a third-year medical school student, has already decided she does not want to have children as she weighs what she sees around her and what she thinks is coming.

“There is going to be more insecurity, more unemployment, and I think more violence and intolerance,” said Calderón.

She did not vote for López Obrador, though most of her family did. Yet, she is still hopeful.

“With him, we hope there is change," she said. "I, as a young person, do not expect anything from the Mexican government because each time, we go from bad to worse.”

Olson said López Obrador “has created enormous expectations by talking about his government as the ‘fourth great era in Mexican history.’ When you talk in that kind of grandiose way, you worry that expectations are too high.”

Christopher Alvarez reported from Mexico City, and Carmen Sesín from Miami. The Associated Press contributed to this report </s> Andrés Manuel López Obrador won a decisive victory in Mexico's presidential election on Monday in a sharp shift to the left for the North American country.

The 64-year-old former mayor of Mexico City and his party, Morena, were also projected to take a majority of seats in the nation's House and Senate.

Runner-up Ricardo Anaya received just 22.5 percent of the vote to López Obrador's 53.1 percent with votes still being tallied.

López Obrador campaigned on pledges to increase welfare spending, provide scholarships to students and battle government corruption.

The Mexico City mayor from December of 2000 to July of 2005, he resigned office to compete in the 2006 election for president.

He fell just shy of winning higher office, with a mere .58 percent of the popular vote separating him from his winning opponent.

He finished second again in the 2012 presidential election before his landslide victory in 2018.

As the mayor of Mexico City, López Obrador formed a connection that could assist him in his relations with America's own populist president. He hired former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani to help him address Mexico City's crime problem.

Giuliani is now Donald Trump's personal attorney and is known to be advising his client, as well, on politics, having participated in Trump's campaign and the fellow New Yorker's transition to office.

President Trump's expectation that he will have a 'very good relationship' with Mexico's next president could be very short-lived, however.

The president-elect of the United States' neighbor to the south staked his campaign on standing up Trump.

Battles on trade and immigration are almost sure to ensure, in light of López Obrador campaign slogan 'Listen, Trump! Saying Yes to a New Start for Mexico, Saying No to a Wall.'

He promised last week in pointed remarks that Mexico 'will never be the piñata of any foreign government' in slap that was directed also directed at Trump.

López Obrador has also indicated that like Trump, he'd be willing to walk away from the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if he doesn't get what he wants.

A populist just like Trump, however, López Obrador has also taken on the 'elites' in Mexico.

Trump recalled on Monday that he once told the rising star 'some day he's going to be the president of Mexico' and his prediction turned out to be correct.
Claudia Sheinbaum takes office as Head of Government of Mexico City, becoming the first woman and first Jewish person to serve as Mexico City's mayor.