In the 18th century, practicing Spanish and Portuguese Jews came from Jamaica and Curaçao, where they had flourished under English and Dutch rule.
These Jews started practicing their religion openly in Colombia at the end of the 18th century, although it was not officially legal to do so, given the established Catholic Church.
These included author Jorge Isaacs of English Jewish ancestry, the industrialist James Martin Eder (who adopted the more Christian name of Santiago Eder when he translated his name to Spanish) born into the Latvian Jewish community, as well as the De Lima, Salazar, Espinoza, Arias, Ramirez, Nunez, Lindo, Tafur, Lozano, Lerma, Vinasco, De Castro, Perez and Lobo families of Antillean Sephardim.
During the early part of the 20th century, numerous Sephardic Jewish immigrants came from Greece, Turkey, North Africa and Syria.
[citation needed] The Jewish population increased dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s, and institutions such as synagogues, schools and social clubs were established throughout the largest cities in the country.
[citation needed] In the department of Antioquia, as well as in the greater Paisa region, some families hold traditions and oral accounts of Jewish descent.
[7] It was known that some Spanish and Portuguese New Christians of Sephardic Jewish ancestry fled the Cartagena de Indias Inquisition and took refuge in the Antioquian mountains during the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
Some Colombian authors like Jorge Isaacs and Miguel Ángel Osorio have claimed that it is indisputable that Paisas have Jewish ancestry.
These individuals, originally seeking refuge from the Spanish Inquisition, established themselves not only in the Paisa region but throughout the entire territory of the New Granada.
The center of the kingdom, including Boyacá, Santander, and Cundinamarca, was particularly noted for the presence of these individuals, and many records of the Inquisition trials come from these areas.
It is estimated that around 10% of the Colombian population carries Jewish DNA, specially in the Andes regions, indicating a widespread Sephardic influence throughout the country.
In the new millennium, after years of study, a group of Colombians with Jewish ancestry formally converted to Judaism in order to be accepted as Jews according to the rabbinical interpretation of the halakha.