History of the Jews in Curaçao

The history of the Jews in Curaçao can be traced back to the mid-17th century, when the first Jewish immigrants began to arrive. The first Jews in Curaçao were Sephardi Jewish immigrants from Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. These immigrants founded Congregation Mikvé Israel-Emanuel, the oldest continuously used synagogue in the Americas. The first Jew to settle in Curaçao was a Dutch-Jewish interpreter named Samuel Cohen, who arrived on board a Dutch fleet in 1634.

As of 2013, the Jewish population is around 350.

History

In 1492, the Jews of Spain, after years of persecution and forced conversion to Catholicism, were expelled en masse. Initially, they sought refuge in nearby Portugal but eventually spread throughout Europe into other places with larger Jewish populations, like Belgium, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Holland.[1] So many of the Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal had settled in Amsterdam, that by the year 1700, the city's community was the largest Jewish center in Western Europe. When the Dutch West India Company began efforts to exploit the resources of the Americas and was placed in charge of colonizing, the Sephardim became involved as translators and traders. The Dutch first moved into the previously Portuguese-led colonies in Brazil and then expanded to other Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Caribbean.[2]

Early settlement

In 1634, the Dutch overthrew the Spanish on the island of Curaçao and migration followed.[3] The first Jew on the island, Samuel Cohen, was part of the conquering fleet and had served as an interpreter to the commander Johan van Walbeeck. The first Sephardim began arriving in the 1650s, when Joao d’Ylan led around a dozen Jewish families to establish the Plantation De Hoop (Plantation of hope) in 1651.[4] Granted a two-mile strip of land along the coast by the West India Company, these settlers established the community of Mikve Israel with the plan of farming.[3][4] They were joined by a group of around seventy colonists arriving in 1659,[3] under the patronage of Isaac da Costa, who brought with them a Torah scroll, as a gift from the Jewish congregation of Amsterdam.[4] That same year, the first cemetery Beth Haim was consecrated, which is probably the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Americas.[5]

Within a generation, the settlers turned to shipping and trading, as soil conditions on the island were unfavorable to farming.[3] Unable to grow their own food, colonists began trading with nearby Spanish colonies in Columbia and Venezuela.[5] Their interests spread to banking and commerce,[4] importing goods like cloth, tools, utensils and weapons from relatives in Europe and exchanging or selling them to obtain foodstuffs, hides, tobacco and wood from other colonies. The change in their employment, also brought about a relocation of the community into the walled city of Willemstad with its easy access to the harbor. Utilizing architectural styles with which they were familiar, these merchants built homes similar to those they had left in Amsterdam, which had living quarters on the upper floors and warehouses for their goods on the lower levels.[5] Their success led to them lending support to other Sephardic communities in North and South America.[4]

By 1674, so much of the population had migrated to Williamstad that a house was converted to serve as a congregational meeting place. Outgrowing the original establishment, in 1690, the Jewish community acquired a new house for worship, which was replaced by a proper synagogue in 1703.[5]

Eighteenth century

Growth in the city continued, and as space became scarce within the city walls, Otrobanda became populated with less affluent Jews, who could not afford the higher rents in Williamstad.[5] In 1732, the second synagogue of the Mikve Israel community was built. The congregation had many unique customs and rituals such as a special black Tallit worn on Tisha B'Av by their rabbi, requiring someone reading from the Book of Lamentations to wear black shoes and use a black yad, and marking the platter at a wedding ceremony by throwing a wine glass at a platter.[4] The building was a smaller version of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam and is the oldest synagogue in existence in the Americas.[5] For the Jews of Otrobanda, a problem arose, in that crossing the harbor to attend services was a breach in the prohibition of working on the Sabbath; thus, in 1746 another synagogue, Neve Shalom, was built as a de facto satellite of Mikve Israel.[5]

Throughout the century Jewish families established a strong foothold in trade and ship-owning,[lower-alpha 1] and were the mainstay of insurance and brokerage. In 1734, 39 out of 44 insurers in Curaçao were Jewish; by the 1790s there were 17 Jews among the island's 25 trade brokers. In the early eighteenth century a Jewish merchant, Daniel Cohen Henriquez, also occupied a central position as the sorter of tobacco grades prior to its export to Amsterdam.[7]

By 1785 about forty percent, or 1200, of the island's white population was Jewish.[3] When the French Revolution occurred, anti-monarchists in Holland, moved against William V, Prince of Orange, forcing him to abdicate. The French established an agent in Curaçao forcing many in the Jewish community who supported William V, to supply their ships and give preferential treatment to French commerce and goods. Introducing and antisemitism previously unknown on the island, the French sent a squadron from Guadeloupe to occupy Curaçao. The island inhabitants raised a National Guard, including Jewish officers Haim Abinun de Lima, Raphael Alvares Correa and Abraham Shalom Delvalle, which repelled the invasion. Under the pretext of helping the islanders, the British then invaded in 1800. Though the Jewish leadership resisted, the British maintained a foothold until 1816. While the British were unable interfere with the religious life of the community, their occupation created economic upheaval in Curaçao.[8]

Nineteenth century

Simon Bolivar visited the island in 1812, when it was still under British rule. He took refuge within the Jewish community in Otrobanda and was able to cultivate support for his independence movement through the mutual disdain for Spanish rule, which he shared with the Curaçaoan Jews.[8] Bolivar inspired such men as David Haim de Moshe Lopez Penha, who served as a colonel; Benjamin Henriques, who became a captain in the cavalry; and Juan de Sola, who commanded the cavalry at the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 to join his fight for independence of Latin America.[9] By the time the Dutch regained possession of the island in 1816, the Jewish population had decreased by fifteen percent. In addition, the sex ratio was skewed because of the economic situation. As men were unable to attain employment, they left the island, relocating to Danish held St. Thomas or to Latin America where countries were beginning to gain their independence and overturn the Inquisition laws.[10] As orthodox women were not allowed to travel without a male chaperone, few Jewish women left Curaçao during the same period men were migrating away.[11]

The out-migration of young Jewish men created a lack of available husbands for the Jewish women of Curaçao. Unable to travel, or marry outside their faith, a new group of single dependent women emerged on the island. Migrating Jewish men, on the other hand, often married gentile women in their new place of residence and abandoned their faith.[12] The Jews who remained in Curaçao married within their community, as did those who migrated to places where other Jewish communities existed, such as St. Thomas. However, because women far outnumbered men in the community by the middle of the century, only fifty-two percent of the Jewish women in Curaçao married.[13] Though a brief pogrom in Coro, Venezuela and a hurricane in St. Thomas brought an influx of immigrants in the period of 1855 to 1867, most of those immigrants left Curaçao after normalcy was restored.[14]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ The influence of Jewish traders on ship-building is evident in the names given to many Curaçao-built craft during the eighteenth century, including the schooners Masaltob, Abraham en Isaac, Bathseba and Bekeerde Jood.[6]

Citations

Bibiliography

External links

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