The Jewish presence in Uruguay dates back to the 16th century, with the settlement of
conversos. However, significant Jewish immigration began at the end of the 19th century with the arrival of
Sephardic Jews from Argentina and Brazil. In the first decades of the 20th century,
Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe began to arrive in Uruguay to escape pogroms and poverty. A large part of them settled in the
Villa Muñoz neighborhood of
Montevideo, where synagogues and schools were established, turning the area into the nucleus of the Uruguayan Jewish community. Due to the differences in origin and language, the Jews in Uruguay merged into different communities: the
Israelite Community (Kehilá), the Hungarian Israelite Community and the
Sephardic Israelite Community, all three founded in 1932, and the
Nueva Congregación Israelita, founded in 1936. Due to the rise of Nazism in Europe, Uruguayan Jews grouped together to create an organization that would bring together and politically represent the entire community. On December 11, 1940, with the union of all the Jewish communities that had existed since previous years, the Central Israelite Committee of Uruguay was created. == References ==