[2] While Inca Jews is not the community's official designation, it is popular outside the community and is derived from the fact that they can trace descent from Peru's indigenous Amerindian people, although mostly in the form of mestizos (persons of mixed Spanish, Amerindian descent, and Spanish Jewish ancestors) and the association of that country's native population with the Incas.

[2] The community was founded in 1966 by a local man of Trujillo named Segundo Villanueva, who began studying Judaism at the age of twelve in 1939, while living in the city of Cajamarca.

In 1971, the majority of the community returned to Trujillo, with a few families remaining in the Amazon and Álvaro moving to Lima to establish a new congregation there.

One of these, Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, was the founder of Amishav, an organization dedicated to finding lost and displaced Jews and reconnecting them to Judaism.

[2] The Beit Din initially performed formal conversions for about 300 members of the community in 1991, almost all of whom emigrated to Israel, who were followed by an additional 200 several years later.