World Bulletin / News Desk

In kosher stores, synagogues and intellectual circles, Mexico's small Jewish community condemned the Israeli prime minister's support for US President Donald Trump's border wall as disappointing and shameful.

"Netanyahu must apologize to the Mexican people for his disgusting statement," the prominent historian Enrique Krauze wrote on Twitter.

Calling Netanyahu a "lackey of Trump," Krauze said he "condemned, deplored and rejected" the prime minister's tweet.

More than 67,000 people practiced Judaism in Mexico during the last national census in 2010, compared to 92 million Roman Catholics, the country's main religion.

Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism during the inquisition first arrived in Mexico with the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, but many continued to suffer persecution in their new homeland.

Jews from other parts of Europe migrated to Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th century. Others came from the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus.

Mexico City's economic development secretary, Salomon Chertorivsky, a descendent of Ukrainian and Polish Jewish immigrants, recalled that the Latin American nation embraced his ancestors by giving their new opportunities.

"For the thousands of stories like family's story ... the prime minister's tweet is condemnable to me," Chertorivsky wrote on Twitter.

"I don't understand how somehow who today governs people who suffered the worst persecution can celebrate the persecution of another population, ours, the Mexicans," he said.

Another city official, Simon Levy, directed a tweet at Netanyahu, saying "Mexicans seek peace and prosperity. As a Mexican Jew I regret your position. I doesn't bring peace."