The Jews in the Caribbean

Jane Gerber is Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is past president of the Association for Jewish Studies. She is author of Jewish Society in Fez: 1450–1700 (1980); The Jews of Spain (1992), winner of a National Jewish Book Award; Sephardic Studies in the University (1995), and Cities of Splendour: Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jews (forthcoming from the Littman Library). She has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, The Hebrew University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Jewish Theological Seminary and has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. She heads the Advisory Board of the American Sephardi Federation and serves on the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History and the Academic Board of the Rothberg School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Aviva Ben-Ur, Associate Professor, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Miriam Bodian, Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin
Judah M. Cohen, Lou and Sybil Mervis Professor of Jewish Culture and Associate Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University
Eli Faber, Professor Emeritus of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
Rachel Frankel, Principal, Rachel Frankel AIA Architecture, New York City
Noah Gelfand, University of Connecticut at Stamford and Hunter College
Jane S. Gerber, Professor of History and Director, Institute for Sephardic Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Josette Capriles Goldish, Research Associate, Hadassah Brandeis Institute
Matt Goldish, Samuel M. and Esther Melton Professor of Jewish History and Director, Melton Center for Jewish Studies, Ohio State University
Ainsley Cohen Henriques, former president, currently a director, honorary secretary, and editor and publisher of the newsletter, United Congregations of Israelites, Kingston, Jamaica
Jonathan I. Israel, Professor of Modern History, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
Stanley Mirvis, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Gérard Nahon, Directeur d'Études (emeritus) in medieval and modern Judaism, École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne, Paris)
Joanna Newman, Director, UK International Unit, Universities UK; former Head of Higher Education, British Library
Ronnie Perelis, Chief Rabbi Dr Isaac Abraham and Jelena (Rachel) Alcalay Assistant Professor of Sephardic Studies, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University, New York
Jackie Ranston, researcher/writer specializing in Jamaican historical biography
James Robertson, Senior Lecturer in History, University of the West Indies, Mona
Jessica Vance Roitman, researcher, Royal Netherlands Institute for South-East Asian and Caribbean Studies
Dale Rosengarten, founding director, Jewish Heritage College, College of Charleston Library
Barry L. Stiefel, Assistant Professor, Joint Program in Historic Preservation, College of Charleston and Clemson University
Hilit Surowitz-Israel, Department of Religion, University of Florida
Karl Watson, formerly Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill
Swithin Wilmot, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education and Senior Lecturer in History, University of the West Indies, Mona

List of Illustrations
Note on Transliteration

Introduction
JANE S. GERBER

PART I The Historical Background of the Caribbean Sephardi Diaspora
1 The Formation of the Portuguese Jewish Diaspora
MIRIAM BODIAN
2 Amsterdam, Curaçao and the Rise of the Sephardi Trade System in the Caribbean (1630–1700)
JONATHAN ISRAEL
3 To Live and to Trade: The Status of Sephardi Mercantile Communities in the Atlantic World during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
NOAH GELFAND

PART II Authority and Community in the Dutch Caribbean
4 Amsterdam and the Portuguese Naçao of the Caribbean in the Eighteenth Century
GÉRARD NAHON
5 ‘A Flock of Wolves Instead of Sheep’: The Dutch West India Company, Conflict Resolution, and the Jewish Community of Curaçao in the Eighteenth Century
JESSICA ROITMAN
6 Religious Authority: An Americas Perspective
HILIT SUROWITZ-ISRAEL

PART III Material and Visual Culture
7 Jonkonnu and Jew: The Art of Isaac Mendes Belisario (1794–1849)
JACKIE RANSTON
8 Testimonial Terrain: The Cemeteries of New World Sephardim
RACHEL FRANKEL
9 The ‘Sacred Lights of Israel’: Synagogue Construction and Architecture in the British Caribbean
BARRY L. STIEFEL

PART IV Jews and Slave Society
10 The Cultural Heritage of Eurafrican Sephardi Jews in Suriname
AVIVA BEN-UR
11 Shifting Identities: Religion, Race, and Creolization among the Sephardi Jews of Barbados, 1654–1900
KARL WATSON
12 Sexuality and Sentiment: Concubinage and the Sephardi Family in Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaica
STANLEY MIRVIS
13 The ‘Confession made by Cyrus’ Reconsidered: Maroons and Jews during Jamaica’s First Maroon War (1728–1738/9)
JAMES ROBERTSON
14 Jewish Politicians in Post-Slavery Jamaica: Electoral Politics in the Parish of St Dorothy, 1849–1860
SWITHIN WILMOT

PART V Reassessing the Geographical Boundaries of Caribbean Jewry
15 The Parameters of Early American Jewish History
ELI FABER
16 Port Jews and Plantation Jews: Carolina–Caribbean Connections
DALE ROSENGARTEN

Part VI. Personal Narratives
17 The Strange Adventures of Benjamin Franks, an Ashkenazi Pioneer in the Americas
MATT GOLDISH
18 Daniel Israel López Laguna’s Espejo Fiel de Vidas (London, 1720) and the Ghost of Marrano Autobiography
RONNIE PERELIS
19 ‘My Heart is Grieved’: Grace Cardoze---A Life Revealed through Letters
JOSETTE CAPRILES GOLDISH

PART VII The Formation of Contemporary Caribbean Jewry
20 Refugees from Nazism in the British Caribbean
JOANNA NEWMAN
21 Inscribing Ourselves with History: The Production of Heritage in Today’s Caribbean Jewish Diaspora
JUDAH M. COHEN

Notes on Contributors
Index