The Jewish diaspora of the Caribbean constantly redefined itself under changing circumstances. This volume looks at many aspects of this complex past and suggests different ways to understand it: as a Jewish diaspora dispersed under different European colonial empires; as a Jewish body joined together by a set of shared Jewish traditions and historical memories; and as one component in a web of relationships that characterized the Atlantic world.
In this lively debut work of history, Edward Kritzler tells the tale of an unlikely group of swashbuckling Jews who ransacked the high seas in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition. At the end of the fifteenth century, many Jews had to flee Spain and Portugal. The most adventurous among them took to the seas as freewheeling outlaws. In ships bearing names such as the Prophet Samuel, Queen Esther, and Shield of Abraham, they attacked and plundered the Spanish fleet while forming alliances with other European powers to ensure the safety of Jews living in hiding. Filled with high-sea adventures–including encounters with Captain Morgan and other legendary pirates–Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean reveals a hidden chapter in Jewish history as well as the cruelty, terror, and greed that flourished during the Age of Discovery.
Caribbean Jewish Crossings is the first essay collection to consider the Caribbean's relationship to Jewishness through a literary lens. Although Caribbean novelists and poets regularly incorporate Jewish motifs in their work, scholars have neglected this strain in studies of Caribbean literature. The book takes a pan-Caribbean approach, with chapters addressing the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. Part 1 traces the emergence of a Caribbean-Jewish literary culture in Suriname, St. Thomas, Jamaica, and Cuba from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century. Part 2 brings into focus Sephardic and crypto-Jewish motifs in contemporary Caribbean literature, while Part 3 turns to the question of colonialism and its relationship to Holocaust memory. The volume concludes with the compelling voices of contemporary Caribbean creative writers.
This photographic essay highlights the little-known history of the first Jewish communities established in the New World dating to the 1600s. Award-winning photographer Wyatt Gallery documents the oldest synagogues and cemeteries on Barbados, Curacao, Jamaica, St. Thomas, St. Eustatius, and Suriname through his singular style of photos with histories written by Stanley Mirvis. The enclaves, formed by Sephardic Jews who fled the Catholic Inquisition, became so influential that they helped fuel the success of the American Revolution and partially finance the first synagogues in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. Once home to thousands, today these historic communities are rapidly dwindling and could soon disappear. Only five historic synagogues remain in use, and many of the cemeteries have been damaged or lost to natural disasters, vandalism, and pollution. These photographs bear witness to the legacy of New World Judaism and provide a record for future generations.
Occasionally one comes across a book, which is unexpected, delights and inspires. Surinam, known as the 'Jewish Savannah', where a vibrant Jewish community was granted full and equal rights two hundred years before the Jews of other communities in the region. St Eustatius, where the economically successful Jewish community was plundered during the British occupation in 1781. Curacao, named the 'Mother of Jewish communities in the New World', where a prosperous Jewish community comprised nearly half of Curacao's non-slave population and was the center of Jewish life in the region. For all their economic and local political power, the Jews were little more than pawns in the 200-year struggle for control of the Caribbean by Holland, Great Britain, France and Spain. Eventually growing tired of this chess game, the Jews of the Caribbean drifted into assimilation or immigrated to the United States, where life was more secure. An ideal resource and captivating read for those traveling to the region or people with an interest in Jewish history, this is an exceptional book that brings the Jewish communities of the Caribbean to life, with intensity, and with a heartbeat so strong as to secure their proper and rightful place in recorded Jewish history.
An in-depth look at the Portuguese Jews of Jamaica and their connections to broader European and Atlantic trade networks Based on last wills and testaments composed by Jamaican Jews between 1673 and 1815, this book explores the social and familial experiences of one of the most critical yet understudied nodes of the Atlantic Portuguese Jewish Diaspora. Stanley Mirvis examines how Jamaica’s Jews put down roots as traders, planters, pen keepers, physicians, fishermen, and metalworkers, and reveals how their presence shaped the colony as much as settlement in the tropical West Indies transformed the lives of the island’s Jews.
In Antisemitism in North America, the editors have brought together an impressive array of scholars from diverse disciplines and political orientations to assess the condition of the Jews in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The contributors do not always agree with each other, but they offer perspectives of why the Jewish experience in North America has neither been free from antisemitism nor ever so unwelcoming and dangerous as the countries from which they came. Contributors examine antisemitism in culture, politics, religion, law, and higher education.
Provides a view of Jewish experiences through history, literature, painting, anthropology, poetry, sociology, and politics. This title explores and celebrates what it means to have and live memories of an individual and a collective Jewishness, and reveals the historical fragments of the Jewish experience in Latin America and the Caribbean.
A comprehensive account of the Jewish population of Jamaica and its role in the economic and cultural life of the country. Beginning in the 16th century, the author chronicles the Jews' fight for civil rights and freedoms and the ways in which they played a key role in international commerce.
