Who is Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico President: Biography, Husband, Daughter, Personal Life, Career
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In addition to being the first woman, Claudia Sheinbaum was also the first Jewish person elected president of Mexico.
In the most significant election in Mexican history, Sheinbaum received about 60% of the vote, a historic victory in a predominantly Catholic nation renowned for its strongly patriarchal society.
Video of Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president:
Who is Claudia Sheinbaum
Born in Mexico City, Mexico, on June 24, 1962, Claudia Sheinbaum is a politician and environmental engineer most known for being the first Jewish and female mayor of Mexico City.
Mayor Sheinbaum of Mexico City held office from 2018 to 2023. After that, he resigned to run for president in 2024 on behalf of the National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional; MORENA). She is renowned for her scientific studies and policy advocacy on environmental, sustainable, and energy-related issues. As part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), she was one of the scientists and decision-makers who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
On June 2, 2024, Sheinbaum will run for president of Mexico, hoping to become the country's first female leader. Xóchitl Gálvez of the Broad Front for Mexico (FAM) is her principal rival.Despite Sheinbaum's Jewish heritage, there was no indication of any Jewish influence on the wedding on social media. Sheinbaum rarely discusses her Judaism in public.
| Key Facts • Full Name: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo • Born: June 24, 1962 (age 62) • Place of Birth: Mexico City • Mexico • Husbands: Jesús María Tarriba (now) and Carlos Ímaz Gispert • Children: One Daughter • Title / Office: Mayor (2018-2023), Mexico City |
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| Claudia Sheinbaum |
Claudia Sheinbaum: Early Life and Education
Sheinbaum is the second child of chemical engineer Carlos Sheinbaum and biologist Annie Pardo Cemo, who is an emeritus professor at Mexico City's National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Sheinbaum grew up in Mexico City before enrolling at UNAM to study physics. She studied energy engineering for her master's and doctoral degrees (both at UNAM), and she carried out her doctoral research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
In her dissertation, she examined Mexico's energy consumption trends in comparison to those of other developed nations. In 1995, Sheinbaum rejoined UNAM as an engineering faculty member.
Claudia Sheinbaum: Personal Life, Husband, Daughter
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| Claudia Sheinbaum and Her Husband (November 2023) |
In November 2023, Claudia Sheinbaum marries in a modest civil ceremony.
Front-runner for president Claudia Sheinbaum married her old university classmate Jesús María Tarriba Unger.
In November 2023, the couple got married in Mexico City in a small civil ceremony in front of their loved ones. On social media, Sheinbaum posted, "We are so happy."
In a radio interview from 2022, the then-mayor of Mexico City revealed that she had been dating Tarriba for six years and that they were engaged, revealing the details of their love story.
After years apart, their shared history from their time at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) rekindled. While running for mayor of Mexico City in 2018, Sheinbaum made passing references to her relationship while keeping her partner's identity a secret.
Sheinbaum recalled their reunion in 2016 in 2022.
Tarriba, who turned 62 on September 1, 2024, is employed as an economic risk analyst and holds a Ph.D. in physics from UNAM.
First Husband and Daughter
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| Mariana Imaz - Daughter of Claudia Sheinbaum |
Sheinbaum was previously married to politician Carlos Ímaz Gispert from 1987 until 2016.
Their only child, Mariana Imaz, 36, was born in 1988. She completed her doctorate in philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently UNAM-Boston's academic coordinator for the humanities.
Additionally, Sheinbaum maintains a close relationship with Rodrigo Imaz, the son of Carlos Ímaz Gispert from a previous marriage.
Claudia Sheinbaum: Political Career
In the 1980s and 1990s, Sheinbaum was involved in politics both as a professor and a student. She would not assume office until the turn of the twenty-first century, despite having contributed to the founding of the student-led Revolutionary Democratic Party in 1998.
Her strong political ties to Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador led to her appointment as Mexico City's environmental minister in 2000. Sheinbaum returned to UNAM after López Obrador's unsuccessful presidential bid in 2006, where she carried out further scientific research and added to the IPCC's fourth and fifth assessment reports' section on climate change mitigation. The fourth assessment was published in 2007, and the IPCC was given a Nobel Peace Prize.
Sheinbaum was chosen as Mexico City's Tlalpan district mayor in 2015. She emphasized the value of equitable use and water rights in this capacity.
Sheinbaum guided Mexico City through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic while serving as mayor. Sheinbaum pushed for masks and more testing early on, while Obrador seemed to downplay the virus's threat. She has also almost completely cut the murder rate in her city, which is remarkable in a violent nation.
Presidential Election of 2024
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| Claudia Sheinbaum, The "Ice Lady" Scientist Vying For Mexico's Presidency |
Sheinbaum declared on June 12, 2023, that she would leave her position as mayor of Mexico City in order to run for president on behalf of MORENA. Given that she has adopted similar leftist stances, such as the belief that every person has a fundamental right to employment, housing, health care, and education, many regard her as the ideological successor to President López Obrador (2018–). Sheinbaum, however, has taken issue with some aspects of the ruling party's policy, especially as they relate to employment and climate change.
Sheinbaum disagrees with López Obrador's policy of supporting Mexico's petroleum industry, which he claimed would stimulate economic growth. She has advocated for the switch from fossil fuels, which emit pollution, to renewable energy that is subsidized nationally.
She is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist
Sheinbaum, who grew up in Mexico City with two science professors, pursued physics and later became an engineering professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Among other things, she studied how much energy is used in Mexico's buildings and transportation infrastructure. She contributed to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with a group of other experts.
Jewish Identity
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| Claudia Sheinbaum wins Mexico’s presidential election, becoming the first woman to lead the nation |
Sheinbaum's grandparents were Sephardic, having emigrated from Sofia, Bulgaria in the 1940s to avoid the Holocaust, and Ashkenazi, who migrated from Lithuania in the 1920s. She has stated that although her family lived a secular lifestyle at home, she observed holidays at her grandparents' homes.
Sheinbaum feels a connection to the history of Jewish political activism, but not so much to the religion or its customs, according to sources who spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018. Her parents relocated to the south of the city to be near the National Autonomous University of Mexico, a hub of political activism, like many secular, leftist Jews in Mexico. During her 2018 mayoral campaign, she declared to a gathering of Jewish women voters that she was a proud Jewish woman.
In addition, she hasn't spoken out in favor of Israel or as a member of a minority, despite the fact that Jews make up less than 1% of the population of the nation's capital. It is unknown if she is a member of any Jewish organizations, such as synagogues.
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