Saint Hershele

Abstract

History pursues the truth through facts; fiction juices those facts until it is possible to extract their truthfulness. The story of Henry Eisenberg Glantz (1959–2020), alias El Santo Judío, a Mexican Jew whose life is the stuff of myth on the US-Mexican border, is surrounded in controversy. An idiot savant, “Hershele” was the child of an Auschwitz survivor and the grandchild of an important Yiddish poet. Obsessed with urban planning, he was particularly interested in the role traffic lights might play in easing vehicular fluency. He coined the now-ubiquitous term “vialidad,” a metaphor for metropolitan dynamism. After entering and abruptly exiting Mexico City’s political establishment, Hershele moved to Tijuana, where he became a successful radio host. In time, he metamorphosed into an associate of the Sinaloa Cartel with influence to commit crimes whose ultimate goal was, in his words, “to bring justice to earth.” As this false profile suggests, at the core of Hershele’s quest was the redemption of the “caged” children of Central American immigrants imprisoned in warehouses by the Trump Administration—“‘los pequeños que los nazis siguen acribillando,’ the little people the Nazis are still massacring.” There is a petition to beatify Hershele being considered by the Vatican.