The Prophet of the Andes

The remarkable true story of how one Peruvian carpenter led hundreds of Catholics to Judaism, sparking a pilgrimage from the Andes to Israel and inspiring a wave of emerging Latin American Jewish communities.

Segundo Villanueva was born into poverty in a tiny farming village perched in the Andes in 1927; when he was seventeen, his father was murdered and Villanueva was left with nothing more than a Bible as his inheritance. This Bible would mark the beginning of Villanueva's lifelong obsession with finding the true message of God contained in its pages. He found himself looking for these answers outside the Catholic Church, whose hierarchy and colonial roots embody the gaping social and racial inequities of Peruvian society.

Over years of religious study, Villanueva explored various Protestant sects and founded his own religious community in the Amazon jungle before discovering a version of Judaism he pieced together independently from his readings of the Old Testament and other texts. His makeshift synagogue began to draw in crowds of fervent believers seeking a faith that truly served their needs. Then, in a series of extraordinary events, politically motivated Israeli rabbis converted the community to Orthodox Judaism and settled them in the West Bank.

Villanueva's incredible journey made him an unlikely pioneer for a new kind of Jewish faith, one that is now attracting masses of impoverished people across Latin America. Through detailed reporting and a deep understanding of religious and cultural history, Graciela Mochkofsky tracks the formation of an unprecedented and momentous chapter in the history of modern religion. This is a moving and fascinating story of faith and the search for dignity and meaning.