While there were a number of Jews in the country who came during the Inquisition, the present day community’s roots begin in mid 1800’s. Those first group of German immigrants were small in number and did not have much influence with other Jews in other countries. The most prominent members of that community were the German Stahl family, which established cotton mills and for 30 years attended to the government’s banking and financing needs.

The second wave of Jewish immigrants, started arriving in the early 1900’s. The first arrived from Germany and various Middle Eastern countries, and were followed in the 1920’s by Jews from Eastern Europe. Many of the latter came via Cuba and considered Guatemala only a transit stop until they could obtain visas to the United States.

Being Jewish in Guatemala has not always been favorable. The country has at times acted to limit the arrival of new Jewish
immigrants. In the early 1930’s, the government ordered the expulsion of all peddlers and Poles from the country. This was meant to hurt the Jews. Due to these restrictions, the Jewish population decreased to 800 people in 1939. The majority of them lived in Guatemala City, Quezaltenengo and San Marcos.

A Jewish school called “Instituto Albert Einstein”, founded in 1957, is authorized by the ministry of education and has an enrollment of 100 children from kindergarten through preparatory levels.

The three main Jewish groups are the Sociedad Israelita de Guatemala (Beth-El), which is Reform and mainly of German origin; Magen David, which is Sephardi; and the Centro Hebreo, which is composed of people with roots in eastern Europe. Each of the organizations maintains its own synagogue. The Consejo operates a Jewish kindergarten.

In Guatemala City, the capital of the country with the same name, there’s a fairly new synagogue that the established Jewish belonging to a small community of about 30 Guatemalans who are recent converts to Judaism. The established community, however, does not recognize them and has no contact with them.

In 2016 Guatemala was home to between 900 and 1,500 Jews. They struggle to maintain numbers as many of the Jews still seek to immigrate for a better future.