Jews in Jamaica

I stumbled upon a fascinating story from the Wall Street Journal about Jews in Jamaica, and how the government wants to attract tourist using the Jewish history angle.

"No matter that Jamaica has just one synagogue and no rabbi, or that its Jewish community is down to around 200 people. It was once home to a Jewish pirate named Moses, according to one account.

A global economic downturn and "ferocious" competition from Mexico, says Jamaican tourism director John Lynch, mean that every traveler counts these days. Jamaica's Jewish history, he concedes, has "been a well-kept secret."

Read the full story here, and also make sure to watch the video embedded in the article. As it turns out, Jamaica was a destination for Jews fleeing the Inquisition, and at one point it had a thriving Jewish community, one of the largest in the Caribbean. The current Jewish population is only around 200, but the tourism bureau hopes the sand-floor synagogue, one of very few in the world, could be a tourist attraction.

While reading, I noticed that two different people in the article, including a Jamaican Jew and a Jewish pirate, both have the surname Henriques, which is of Portuguese origin. So I looked it up, and the full story of the Jewish pirate is completely fascinating: Moses Cohen Henriques, a Portuguese Jew, allegedly aided Dutch captain Piet Hein in one of the biggest heists in history, capturing Spanish ships in Cuba with silver and gold worth around US$1 billion in today's currency. It gets better! Then, Henriques headed to Brazil, where he established a pirate colony on an island off the coast. In 1754, when the Dutch took over Northern Brazil, he left Brazil to join pirate Henry Morgan in his adventures.

There's a lot more where that came from in Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, which is going on my to-read list.

While I'm not sure how much luck Jamaica will have with this "attraction," it's certainly an interesting idea, one that could definitely be adopted in Recife, home to one of the oldest synagogues in the Americas and a former thriving community of Dutch Jews that later established the first Jewish community in New York. The temple is simple but beautiful, and there's also a small museum in the synagogue. But the city itself could do more to promote its former Jewish heritage as a cultural destination, and it could use Jamaica's experience as a model, since I think Pernambuco actually has an even larger and more complex Jewish history.

Comments

[bambooska]

"the sand-floor synagogue"

Are they entirely made of sand or did I understand it wrong?

[Viva]

I loved to learn about that! Thanks for sharing such interesting story :-)

[boredwell]

Hey, thanks for turning me on to this fascinating history of Jews in Jamaica. My grandmother was born in Havana and though she wore a Mogen Dovid around her neck curiously celebrated Christmas and Easter and went to mass. She said the pendant had been in the family for generations. It was handed down to her from her grandmother. But that's all she knew. Or pretended to know! Your article prodded me to begin a much promised but oft postponed genealogical search. Thanks again. Enjoy your blog, too, BTW.

[Steadyrecords@dankunlimited.com]

The World of Jamaicans, Hahahahahaha, funny story, we lived in holland for four years and that was the worst country to ever lived in, because of that we don't like the dutch, we consider all of them to be truly evil, now we living in the UK, here in the UK we met an African Brother from Ghana, he is with a dutch woman, he also have two children with her, when we looked at the head of his son we noticed a similarity on the shape of his head and our own head, we thought it was the Ghana connection, because my grandfather his mother was from Ghana, but the shape was from his mother side whom is a lesser-black dutch woman, We ponder no way we could not really be connected to the dutch, later when we dug more on our own so-called jewish bloodline we found out the my great great great grandfather was a so-called jew, that came from Brazil to Jamaica, the Royce bloodline, after reading this article there is no doubt that his family came from evil holland to jamaica. Yes we knew there was a very very large so-called jewish community in Jamaica at one point, in fact Jamaica was the homeland of the so-called jews, that's why jamaicans don't need a visa to go to "Israel"

We are currently writing a poetry book of 156 poems and 156 authors comments, the title of the book is Ankh Chi Tao, also currently working on the glossary for the book, here is our Poetic Extrapolative Dictionary on the word hebrew:

Hebrews: In ancient roots it was habiru, habiri apiru, which later became known as bandit, not the chosen people, many of these bandits of their horde instead of the sentence of death they were given the task in the ancient lands as manual laborers. From this position they stole the rights of nations by placing their imagination onto the black roots of ancient Sumerians and Akkadians. Through wars and manipulation of global finance the images of global mass murders and serial killers changed to the modern outlook of the hebrews/apirus as victims of genocide. It’s the society of men laws where all the criminals become wealthy victims.

Ashia:- Hotep
By [:Divine-Sovereign Great-Negro Ank Justice SteadySpear EI:]©®™
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[Jolly]

There's more Jews than one would think. Here's one I stumbled across at BN: http://www.jamaicanjew.com/. When I have time I'd like to research a bit more... It makes me wonder if there's a tie in with the Rastafarians who use a lot of Jewish imagery in their visual and performance arts.

[Richard Guy]

Yes the floor is not tiled it is just sand. The sand transmits no sound. Secrecy of worship was practiced in Spain during the Inquisition. The Synagogue in Curacoa also has a sand floor for the same traditional reason. Both Synagogue,s are worthwhile tourist attractions.