Kosher and Jewish Life in San Jose

San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, sits in the Central Valley region with the Talamanca Mountains to the south and volcanoes to the north. The city is distinguished by its Spanish colonial architecture, such as the ornate neoclassical National Theatre of Costa Rica, at downtown’s Plaza de la Cultura. Underneath the plaza, the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum displays hundreds of gleaming artifacts. The population of San José Canton is 188,054. The temperature ranges between 17 and 30 °C (63 and 86 °F). It rains on an average of 170 days per year but half the rainfall pours down on only 15 of these days. The rainy season is from May to mid-November, but cloudiness and rainfall can occur during the dry season. San José has many beautiful theatres, many with European-inspired architecture. San José is also host to various museums. San José is home to many parks and squares (plazas in Spanish); where one can find gazebos, open green areas, recreational areas, lakes, fountains, statues and sculptures by Costa Rican artists and many different bird, tree and plant species.