The Jewish ancestry of Claudia Sheinbaum, who’s leading the polls ahead of Sunday’s presidential election in Mexico, has remained a marginal aspect of a race dominated by the country’s crime problem , environmental and immigration policies, as well as the economy. Still, the Jewishness of Sheinbaum — who rarely speaks about it but has said in 2018 that she was “proud” of her Jewish origins — is attracting some attention from Jews and non-Jews alike in a country with populist politics, strong Catholic traditions and a high prevalence of antisemitic views. Whereas the secular Judaism of Sheinbaum, the 61-year-old former mayor of Mexico City, is a common attitude among Mexican Jews, as a politician she has pursued a strategy that keeps it “hidden” without denying it, journalist Pablo Majluf, who is Jewish, wrote in a recent op-ed on the subject for the Etcetera newspaper.

Detractors of leftist Shainbaum’s use of antisemitic rhetoric against her may explain at least partly any desire on her part to downplay her Judaism. Vicente Fox, a former president and Mexican right-wing stalwart, has apologized for posting on X last year that between Sheinbaum and Xóchitl, “the only Mexican is Xóchitl,” referencing Xóchitl Gálvez, Sheinbaum’s main rival in the elections. Fox did this in a repost of a text characterizing Sheinbaum as a “Bulgarian Jew.

” Later that same year, he posted “Jewish and also a foreigner” about a picture of Sheinbaum wearing a .