San Antonio: Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, Aug. 1-3

Tracing the Tribe cannot attend this year's 20th Conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies in San Antonio, Texas, August 1-3.

Among the presenters at the Hilton Palacio del Rio will be Dr. Stanley Hordes ("Ends of the Earth"), of the University of New Mexico's Iberian Studies department.

For several years, he has been researching in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Jamaica, building on his previous book's focus on the Southwest.

His most recent research trip was to Puerto Rico, where he conducted investigations in Ponce, Juana Diaz, Mayaguez, San German, Hormigueros, Anasco, Aguada, Aguadilla, Moco, San Sebastian, Lares, Arecibo and Ciales. On an earlier trip, he studied microfilms at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, covering 16th-17th century records.

All Sephardic researchers should be interested in the new research, and I'm sorry I won't be there to hear about it.

The event includes speakers from England, Algeria, Mexico and the US, who will speak on Crypto-Judaism in Northern Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Spanish Caribbean, Spain, Portugal and North Africa.

Here's the tentative program (also included are meals, art gallery and more) received today by Tracing the Tribe from Stan Hordes, who adds that changes might still take place:

Sunday, August 1

Welcome
Seth Ward, University of Wyoming, Program Chair
Stanley M. Hordes, University of New Mexico, VP - Conferences
Kathleen J. Alcalá, Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, President

Keynote
Marie-Theresa Hernandez, University of Houston Presidential Fellow: "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Secret Jews in the Mexican Church"

Monday, August 2

PANEL ONE:

David Ben Yosef, Spertus Institute: "Maimonides’ Letter on Apostasy and H. Solveichik’s critique"
Juan Marcos Bejaranno Gutierrez, Spertus Institute: "Samuel Usque’s Consolations: A Review"
Kathleen Alcalá, Northwest Institute of Literary Arts:"The Illegal Alien as Flaneur"

PANEL TWO
Martin J. Salvucci, University of Chicago: "Liberalism and Intolerance: Leo Strauss, Baruch Spinoza, and the Theoretical Foundations of Crypto-Judaism"
Abigail Seldin, Oxford: "Exploring Politics of Emergence in New Mexico: Work in Progress"

PANEL THREE Self and Image in the Converso Journey: Visual artists panel
Mercedes Gail Gutierrez (Nitzah Avigayil), Netanya, Israel and Davis, CA, Facilitator/panelist
Laura Cesana, Lisbon, Portugal, Panelist
Dan Riis Grife, Coupland, TX, Panelist

PANEL FOUR
Stanley M. Hordes, Latin American and Iberian Institute, University of New Mexico: "The Sephardic Legacy in the Spanish Caribbean: A History of the Crypto-Jews of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and pre-British Jamaica"
Abe Lavender, Florida International University: "The Secret Jews and New Christians of Brazil"

Tuesday, August 3

PANEL FIVE
Laura Cesana, Lisbon, Portugal: "An Artist's Journey: An Update of Judaism in Portugal"
Diana S. Zertuche, Del Rio, TX: "Nopalitos:The Crypto Jewish Remnants Along The Texas Borderlands"
M. Miriam Herrera, Malta, NY: "A Crypto-Jew Celebrates Her First Dia de los
Muertos (Day of the Dead): Poetry with Prose"

PANEL SIX: Publishing Fact And Fiction About Crypto Jews; Panel
Abe Lavender, Florida International University, Panelist: "Problems and Rewards of Publishing the Journal of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Crypto Jews"
Art Benveniste, HaLapid and the SCJS Website
Dolores Sloan, Mount St. Mary's College, Panelist: "Publishing Fact and Fiction: Assessing Achievements and framing future discussion"

For more information about the conference, click here.

Jewish History: Do you know......?

What happened on June 24 in Jewish history?

Do you know about the Mortara affair in Italy, a British law requiring Jewish parents to support children who had become Protestant, a second exile from France, several massacres, Italian ghettos, a Hungarian residence tax, the Red Cross, or when Jews received full Polish citizenship?

This Day in Jewish History provides a great day-by-day list of such happenings. Today's list goes back to 1298, and covers events in Austria, France, England, Jamaica, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Russia, US, Turkey and Ukraine.

These events may help explain your family's movements to various countries at certain times, and clarify family stories handed down over the generations. I always find the site fascinating!

1298: Massacre of the Jews of Ifhauben, Austria.

1322: Charles IV of France expelled all the Jews from France without the promised one year's warning. This marked the second expulsion of the Jews from France.

1509: Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon crowned King and Queen of England. There were no Jews living in England at this time. Henry’s father (Henry VII) had promised Catherine’s parents (the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella) that Jews would never be allowed the realm of the English monarchs. Thanks to the turmoil that Henry would create when he went to shed Catherine as his Queen and royal mate, small numbers of Marranos and crypto-Jews would be living in England by the end of the century.

1692: Founding of Kingston, Jamaica. By now, Jamaica was an English colony and Jews can practice their religion as opposed to their secret observance that had been the norm during Spanish rule. There were enough Jews living in Kingston that synagogues were reportedly opened in 1744 and 1787.

1648: In Tulczyn, Poland, an agreement between the 2,000 Jews and 600 Christians to defend the town at all costs succeeded in preventing the Cossacks from capturing the town. The Cossacks persuaded the Christians that they would let them go free if they would give them the Jews. The (furious) Jews were persuaded by the Rabbi that if they took revenge on the Poles other Jews would suffer. The gates were opened and most of the Jews killed. The Cossacks then turned on the Poles and killed most of them as well. For the most part, during the entire war the Poles and the Jews were uneasy allies against the Cossacks.

1702: In Great Britain an “Act to oblige Jews to maintain and provide for their Protestant children” took effect. This act of Parliament grew out of case involving Jacob de Mendez Berta and his daughter Mary who became a Protestant. According to one source, the father refused to continue to support his daughter after she converted and her newly adopted Protestant community did not want to shoulder the burden of her support. Hence, this legislation was adopted and would stay in effect until the middle of the 19th century.

1843: The Inquisitor of Ancona, Italy decreed that Jews may not live in any municipality where there was no ghetto.

1846: In Hungary, the residence tax was officially abolished. In order to have it cancelled the Jews had to pay a one-time fee of 1,200,000 florins.

1856: In Rome, a contingent of papal carabinieri “acting at the orders of the local Inquisitor, Father Pier Gaetan Feletti, took six year old Edgardo Mortara from his parent’s apartment because church officials discovered that Edgardo had been secretly baptized by a servant girls five years ago and that he could no longer “be raised in a Jewish household.” Thus began the scandal known as the Mortara Affair.

1873: In a sermon, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher gave the first public warning of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. Beecher was a fighter for social justice, an abolitionist and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

1908: President Grover Cleveland died of heart failure. As President, Cleveland appointed Oscar Solomon Strauss envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey in 1887. In 1897 Cleveland vetoed an immigration bill that included a literacy test. The literacy test was a thinly veiled attempt to close the doors to immigrants including the wave of Jews coming from Eastern Europe. In 1903, Cleveland, who was by now former President, was the featured speaker at the New York City rally protesting the Kishinev Pogroms.

1918: Jacob Schiff of New York City protests against the Red Cross which has discriminated against Jews from Bulgaria and Turkey, Germany and Austro-Hungary. Red Cross stated Jews from these lands, or children who have fathers who were born in these lands cannot serve in the Red Cross.

1919: In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, France, Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski signed the Minorities Treaty that “awarded full civil, religious and political rights to all citizens of the new Poland, with the term ‘citizen’ applied broadly to all person either born or ‘habitually’ resident on Polish territory.” This meant that the Jews of Poland were guaranteed full citizenship in the newly reconstituted Poland ... opening the path to full citizenship for the Jews of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.

There's much more. See the link above.

Jamaica: Unique Jewish heritage

Tracing the Tribe's friend Ainsley Henriques is a distant relative of a Jewish merchant from Amsterdam who arrived in Jamaica in 1670 to find Columbus' hidden treasure.

The ancestor didn't find the treasure, but the family has remained on the island for more than 300 years.

JTA's Gil Shefler wrote this story of Jamaica's Jews as he attended the island's week-long conference on the Sephardic Jews of the Caribbean.

Although the story is excellent and provides insight into this unique community, I don't understand why Shefler continues to use the pejorative Marrano when he means Converso.

Ainsley Henriques, in his 70s, leads the small community and guards its history and traditions.

"I restructured the congregation, established an office, employed staff and persuaded the community to open a museum," Henriques tells JTA. "We have hundreds of school children coming in to the synagogue every week to learn aboutthe community."

Henriques teamed up with the Jamaican government to host an academic conference last week in Kingston on the history of the island's Jewish community. Participants came from around the world.

But Henriques harbors few illusions: He knows his may be a losing battle.

The community has shrunk from more than 2,500 in 1881 to only 450 in 1974. Today there are some 200, and there hasn't been a full-time rabbi for three decades.

Jamaican Jews are a subspecies of their own. A significant minority are black, the descendants of intermarriages or relationships between Jewish plantation owners and their slaves. They speak in the same unmistakable accent for which the island is famous. And like most Jamaicans -- but perhaps unlike most Jews -- they are laid back.

In downtown Kingston on Friday nights, prayers can be heard coming from the beautiful Sharei Shalom Synagogue-United Congregation of Israelites, the only remaining shul on the island. Prayers are read in English, Hebrew and Spanish -- a reminder of the community's Sephardic origins.

Sharei Shalom was constructed in 1908, on the site of one destroyed by a major earthquake. It is one of only four synagogues in the world with a sand floor.

"There are four main reasons why the floor is covered in sand," Henriques explains as he stands on the bimah. "First, to remind us that we are desert people. Second, that we may be as many as the grains of sand. Third, because it muffled the steps of our ancestors who worshiped in secret. And four -- and perhaps the most important reason -- the kids love it."

The community survived in isolation for a long time and adapted traditions to what was available. Instead of etrog (citron) on Sukkot, they used oranges. Today, writes Shefler, five etrog seedlings are growing in the garden of a community member.

Jamaica's Jews were merchants and also owned plantations, there were pirates as well as those involved in the slave trade. They've been elected to parliament and founded the biggest newspaper, The Gleaner.

There is a Hillel Academy, opened in 1969, with several hundred students - only a few are Jewish. The Jewish students study religion outside of normal classes.

While some descendants of Jews attend services regularly, assimilation and emigration have taken their toll, and Henriques feels he is fighting a losing battle. He tries to draw Jewish tourists to the island's synagogue and cemeteries, but also feels that the community may vanish, according to his estimate, in perhaps another three decades.

Read the complete story at the link above. Visit the United Congregation of Israelites website for much more information on this community.

Jamaica: Reggae Jewish connections

Jewish Jamaican ties are the subject of an interview with Ainsley Henriques at the Caribbean Sephardic Diaspora conference in Jamaica.

Tracing the Tribe wrote several posts leading up to the event.

Read one of two JTA stories, by Gil Shefler on his visit to Jamaica, here.

After a week of attending a Jewish conference here, I'm starting to feel like everybody in Jamaica has some kind of connection to Judaism.

Ainsley Henriques, the don of the local community, says thousands of Jamaicans have Jewish backgrounds, though they don't identify as Jews.

A scan of the local telephone directory seems to confirm his claim: Thousands of Cohens, Levys and Gabays are listed. But the local Jewish congregation numbers a mere 200 members.

Shefler mentions Jamaican dance-hall musician Sean Paul, whose paternal grandfather was a Jew named Henriques, just like my friend Ainsley's.

Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's mother's maiden name was Lindo, a prominent island Jewish family.

Ainsley says he believes that Harry Belafonte also has Judaic through his Jamaica-born father whose surname was a corruption of Delevante, an island Jewish clan.

[NOTE: Of course, many Sephardic name indexes indicate Belafonte as a confirmed Jewish name in that spelling, so there is also Belafonte and Delevante and other spellings.]

Ainsley told Shefler that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was on a tour of the Kingston synagogue when Farrakhan said that he had paternal Jewish Portuguese ancestors from Jamaica.

Reggae king Marley is not Jewish, says Ainsley, who knows the family well and says one of his sons is married to an Israeli.

Read the complete story at the link above.

Jews of the Caribbean: Jamaica

Here are some well-known Jews of Jamaica:

-- Poet Daniel Lopez Laguna (1635-1730), a survivor of the Inquisition who converted biblical Psalms into poems. A book of these poems, Espejo Fiel de Vidas (The True Mirror of Life), was published in 1720 and was the first book to be published in Jamaica under British rule.

-- 19th century painter Isaac Mendes Belisario, whose famed "Belisario" prints of Jamaican characters are cultural icons, now featured on a series of Jamaican stamps.

-- Newspapermen Jacob and Joshua de Cordova, who founded the "Gleaner" in 1833. Jacob went on to found the city of Waco, Texas.

-- Ward Theatre architect Rudolph Henriques, a noted artist whose firm Henriques and Sons was awarded the commission in a competition. The majestic landmark was built in 1912.

-- Jorge Ricardo Isaacs (1837-1895), author of Maria, considered the "national novel" of Columbia.

-- Sir Neville Noel Ashenheim, a member of a family known as legal luminaries, served as Jamaica's first ambassador to Washington, 1960s.

-- Richard Stern, the Hon. Ernest Altamont da Costa and Councillor Senator Hon. Eli Matalon, served as Mayors of Kingston in 1896-97, 1925-27 and 1971-73 respectively.

-- The Matalon family, known as one of Jamaica's long-standing captains of industry and supporter of the arts.

For much more on Jamaican Jewish history, see this article (2005) by Dr. Rebecca Tortello - Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Jews In Jamaica - which can be read at Pieces of the Past here.

The detailed article (photos from 1978 and 1984, ) covers these main topics: The Arrival, Jewish Jamaica - Spanish Town and Jews in Jamaica-Kingston.

Caribbean conference: More information

Here's more information on The Jewish Diaspora of the Caribbean International Conference , which will explore the history, culture, and identity of Caribbean Jewry, from January 12-14, 2010.

Here's much more information on session titles, post-conference program, hotel and registration. This is an update to Tracing the Tribe's previous post which provided only speakers' names.

The venue is the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. High-season discounted rates: deluxe single (US$149.73) or deluxe double (US$171.38), including service charge, all taxes and buffet breakfast. For more on the conference, click here; for registration and fees, click here (scroll down for details).

Jamaica is easily accessible from the East Coast. I wish it were as accessible from Tel Aviv!

Tuesday, January 12
--Sephardic Trade Networks in the Colonial Caribbean
Chair: Jane S. Gerber

Miriam Bodian, University of Texas
“The Formation of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Diaspora.”

Jonathan I. Israel, Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton
“Amsterdam, Curacao and the Rise of Sephardic Trade System in the Caribbean (1600–1670)”

Gérard Nahon, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
“Amsterdam and the Jewish Nation of the Caribbean during the Seventeenth Century”

Holly Snyder, Brown University
“What Jewish Merchants Contributed to Jamaican Commerce, 1670–1831.

-- Material and Visual Culture of Caribbean Jewry
Chair: Judah Cohen

Rachel Frankel, Architect
“Remnant Stones: The Significance of New World Portuguese Jewish Diaspora Cemeteries.”

Sharman Kadish, Director, Jewish Heritage, UK; University of Manchester
“Isaac Mendes Belisario, London’s Bevis Marks Synagogue, and the Sephardi Architectural Heritage."

Jackie Ranston, Independent Scholar, Jamaica,
“Biography as History: The Art of Isaac Mendes Belisario (1794–1849)—Story Painter.”

Wednesday, January 13
-- Caribbean Jewish Identity and Heritage: From Conversos to Modern Jews
Chair: Miriam Bodian

Mordechai Arbell, The Ben Zvi Institute, Jerusalem
“The Gradual Disappearance of the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Communities of the Caribbean.”

Ronnie Perelis, Yeshiva University
“Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna’s Espejo Fiel de Vidas (London 1720) and the Ghost of Marrano Autobiography.”

Hilit Surowitz, University of Florida
“Portuguese Jews of the Caribbean and the Question of Early Modern Secularization.”

Judah Cohen, Indiana University
“Inscribing Ourselves with History: Exploring Heritage in Today's Caribbean Jewish Diaspora.”

TOUR: A Jamaican Jewish Heritage Tour of the Duke Street Synagogue, with author/local historian Ed Kritzler

-- Blacks and Jews in the English Caribbean
Chair: Eli Faber

James Robertson, University of the West Indies, Mona
“The ‘Confession made by Cyrus’ reconsidered: Maroons and Jews during the First Maroon War.”

Stan Mirvis, The Graduate Center, CUNY
“Sexuality and Sentiment: Concubinage between Jewish Males and their Female Slaves in late Eighteenth-Century Jamaica.”

Swithin Wilmot, University of the West Indies, Mona
“Jewish Retailers and Black Voters in Post Slavery Jamaica: Electoral Politics in the Parish of St. Dorothy, 1849-1860.”

Thursday, January 14
-- Reassessing the Geographic and Ethnic Definitions of Caribbean Jewry Chair: Jane S. Gerber

Eli Faber, John Jay College, CUNY
“The Jews of Colonial America: How Broad were the Parameters?”

Matt Goldish, Ohio State University
"Franks Among Franks: Adventures of a Jamaican Ashkenazi in the 1690s."

Dale Rosengarten and Barry Steifel, The College of Charleston
“Charles Towne, South Carolina: Northernmost Outpost of the Gulf-Caribbean Plantation Region.”

Joanna Newman, The University of Southampton; The British Library
“Refugees from Nazism in the Caribbean during World War Two.”

TOUR: Jamaican Jewish Heritage Tour of the Hunt’s Bay Cemetery, with author/local historian Ed Kritzler

-- The Art of Sephardic Genealogy Workshop

John de Mercado, Independent Scholar
“A Sephardic Odyssey: Four Centuries of the de Mercado Family in the West Indies.”

Panel Discussion: Ainsley Henriques, John de Mercado, David Kleiman.

Post-Conference Program Highlights, January 15-16
(Click here to read about the Jewish significance of these sites).

Friday, January 15: Hillel Academy - Visit to Jamaica’s National Gallery of Art - Lunch at Strawberry Hill - Shabbat Service - Kiddush and Dinner.

Saturday, January 16: Shabbat Services - Lunch at Devon House - Visit to Port Royal - Dinner in Old City - Cocktails and Concert.

The conference is sponsored by the United Congregation of Israelites of Kingston Jamaica, Institute for Sephardic Studies of the Graduate Center CUNY, University of the West Indies, American Sephardi Federation, International Survey of Jewish Monuments, Jamaica Tourist Board, Commonwealth Jewish Council, Laurence and Ronnie Levine and Dr. John de Mercado.

Jamaica: Caribbean Diaspora Conference, Jan. 12-14, 2010

The Jewish Diaspora of the Caribbean International Conference, exploring the history, culture, and identity of Caribbean Jewry, is set for January 12-14, 2010, in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies.

The chairs are well-known researcher of Sephardic history and author Jane S. Gerber (Professor of Jewish History, The Graduate Center, CUNY) and Ainsley Henriques (director, The United Congregation of Israelites).

Tracing the Tribe's readers may have met Ainsley at past international Jewish genealogy conferences.

The venue is Kingston's Pegasus Hotel and the line up of speakers is excellent. Tracing the Tribe wishes it could be there!

Here's what you can expect:

Tuesday, January 12
I. Sephardic Trade Networks in the Colonial Caribbean

Chair: Jane Gerber
Miriam Bodian, University of Texas
Gérard Nahon, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Jonathan I. Israel, Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton
Holly Snyder, Brown University

II. Material and Visual Culture of Caribbean Jewry

Chair: Judah Cohen
Rachel Frankel, Architect
Sharman Kadish, Director, Jewish Heritage, UK; University of Manchester
Jackie Ranston, Independent Scholar, Jamaica

Wednesday, January 13
III. Caribbean Jewish Identity and Heritage: From Conversos to Modern Jews

Chair: Miriam Bodian
Mordechai Arbell, The Ben Zvi Institute, Jerusalem
Ronnie Perelis, Yeshiva University
Hilit Surowitz, University of Florida
Judah Cohen, Indiana University

IV. Blacks and Jews in the English Caribbean

Chair: Eli Faber
James Robertson, University of the West Indies, Mona
Stan Mirvis, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Swithin Wilmot, University of the West Indies,Mona

Thursday, January 14
V. Reassessing the Geographic and Ethnic Definitions of Caribbean Jewry

Chair: Jane S. Gerber
Eli Faber, John Jay College, CUNY
Matt Goldish, Ohio State University
Dale Rosengarten and Barry Steifel, The College of Charleston
Joanna Newman, The University of Southampton; The British Library

VI. The Art of Sephardic Genealogy Workshop

John deMercado, Independent Scholar
Ainsley Henriques, The United Congregation of Israelites, Kingston
David Kleiman, President, Heritage Muse, Inc.

There will also be a guided Jamaican Heritage Tour of the Duke Street Synagogue and Hunt’s Bay Cemetery, with author (Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean) and local historian Ed Kritzler.

For more information and advance registration, click here. Interested readers may also contact the conference coordinator Stan Mirvis or Ainsley Henriques.

The United Congregation of Israelites website holds a wealth of information on Caribbean Jewry, including history, films, photographs, newsroom, archive, books and much more. Tracing the Tribe has previously written about Jamaica and the Caribbean in some 30 posts. Go to the SEARCH box in the right sidebar and type in "Caribbean."

Early Jewish records: New York, Jamaica

American Jewish History, founded in 1892, is the official publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, the oldest national ethnic historical organization in the US and includes every aspect of the American Jewish experience. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

The issue (Volume 91, Number 3-4) for September-December 2003 is available here. This is a free issue - full articles are available in HTML or PDF format. Two are of interest to Sephardic and Ashkenazi genealogists.

Leo Hershkowitz contributed Dutch Notarial Records Pertaining to Asser Levy, 1659-1692. Levy was an Ashkenazi Jew from Vilna who was one of earliest Jewish residents of New Amsterdam. Hershkowitz has accessed early records in which Levy appears and also unearthed family relationships. Read the complete article here

He is Professor of History at Queens College of The City University of New York; author and editor of works including, Wills of Early New York Jews (1704-1799) and (with Isidore Meyer) The Lee Max Friedman Collection of American Jewish Colonial Correspondence: Letters of the Franks Family (1733-1748). His annotated transcription of "Original Inventories of Early New York Jews (1682-1763)" appeared in the last volume of American Jewish History.

Excerpt:

Among the voluminous records found in the Gemeente Archief (Municipal Archive) in Amsterdam are notarial archives, many of which relate to the New Amsterdam Jewish experience 350 years ago. Here can be found legal and business papers, as well as ones that contain such vital statistics as marriages, births, and deaths. While these records make the past more understandable and help to answer many questions, paradoxically they also raise new issues in their wake.

Letters, diaries, journals, and the like are largely absent for the earliest period of American Jewish history, the mid-seventeenth century. Merchants and entrepreneurs seem to have had little interest in commenting on their lives so that future generations could readily comprehend their motives and desires. Theabsence of such "windows" makes the Gemeente Archief notarial materials all the more important. They are a major link with what was. Published here are several documents selected from the Archief that pertain to Asser Levy, the first permanent Jewish inhabitant of New Amsterdam. Like Levy, a number of Jews arrived at that frontier settlement in 1654, but he is the only one to have remained, dying in 1682 in English New York. There are no other known prior deaths of Jews in the city. His career as merchant, land speculator, and butcher provided a cornerstone for a future Jewish presence.

Levy was born in or came from Vilna, then Poland, but after Cossack pogroms he went to Schwelm, near Dusseldorf, then Amsterdam and in 1654 to New Amsterdam. In 1660 he returned to Germany and then back to New Amsterdam again.

The author asks why he travelled to and from Schwelm and what he did there. Why did his contemporary Joseph d'Acosta travel frequently to Hamburg? What German archival records can provide information? Why did he do in Amsterdam and why did he spend his life there, when the other early Jewish residents moved on to other locations.

The next article, by Eli Faber, is Letters from Jamaica, 1719-1725, which includes letters from Diego Luis Gonsales, his son Abraham Gonsales, and Nathan Simson, along with information on 18th century commerce and history pertaining to Jamaica, New York and London. Read the complete article here.

He is Professor of History at The City University of New York (John Jay College of Criminal Justice; The University Graduate Center), and serves as editor of American Jewish History. He is the author of Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight, and currently is working on a history of the Jews of New York City during the 20th century.

Here's an excerpt:

The letters transcribed here were written by Diego Luis Gonsales (Gonzales) and his son, Abraham Gonsales, both of Jamaica, to Nathan Simson of New York andLondon. Informative about many commercial matters, they underscore the importance of transatlantic ties for Jewish settlers in England's New-World colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Jews who settled in colonial America aspired to careers as merchants whoparticipated in the international commerce that spanned the Atlantic basin. Such trade provided the economic basis for the small seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jewish communities that developed in New York, Savannah, Philadelphia, Newport, and Charleston, with the most successful merchants often serving asleaders of the congregations that arose in those locations.

Success in commerce during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries depended upon participation in a transatlantic network of merchants connected by ties of religion and, when possible, family. This was true not only of Jewish merchants but also of businessmen who belonged to other contemporary ethnic and religious groups, notably Quakers and Huguenots. Such connections provided a large measure of trust and stability in an era in which commercial correspondents had no other means for ascertaining the reliability of their counterparts in the scattered, distant ports that spanned the Atlantic trading world, which ranged from Western Europe to Madeira, the Azores, Africa, the Caribbean, the North American mainland, and the coasts of Central and South America.

Click here for a list of all AJH issues, their contents and abstracts.

Jamaica: Belisario biography

Isaac Mendes Belisario (1794-1849) was a Jamaican-born Sephardic artist. His biography - "Belisario, Sketches of Character, A Historical Biography of a Jamaican Artist" - by Jackie Ranston and Valerie Facey, was just published by The Mill Press, in Jamaica.

Born in the Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1794 to a family of wealthy Jewish merchants and notorious slave traders, Isaac Mendes Belisario is paradoxically remembered for having preserved the culture of the slaves with his works of art.

In the first historical study of this little-known painter and lithographer, the author begins by tracing the dramatic lives of the old and distinguished Sephardic Jewish families from whom Belisario is descended.

On the distaff side is the family Lindo, living double lives as crypto-Jews until they are denounced by their household slaves and escape the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition to live in seventeenth-century London. Here they are joined by another émigré, Jacob Mendes Belisario and his family; the poor but proud aficionados of the opera who elude the prying, predatory eyes of the Inquisition but still display the emblems of the kings of Spain on their coat of arms and remain loyal to the legend of their family name.

From the chocolate-maker to the rabbi, each generation marks time in London before this swirling Jewish family history moves to the island of Jamaica where its members seize the opportunities offered by the New World; but their meteoric rise is thwarted by the actions of such historical figures as Napoleon and Toussaint L’Ouverture, whose exploits unknowingly combine to witness their downfall.

I became aware of this book through a story in the Jamaica Gleaner, by Laura Tanna, who writes

Every paragraph reveals something about our world and history, which we ought to have known and probably didn't. There's enough material in this book to provide substance for a score more, but she deftly weaves astonishing strands of material into a cohesive whole and this is the real brilliance of the book.

Because Belisario was Jewish, Ranston goes right back to the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem when Jews were first scattered throughout mankind. She provides the most comprehensive introduction to the horrors of the Roman Catholic Inquisition suffered by Jews and their 1492 expulsion from Spain, accelerating their migration to Morocco, Turkey, Germany, to settlements in London, Amsterdam, Tuscany and subsequently the West Indies. Juxtaposing this story with the horrors of slavery imposed on those from Africa, who also settled in the West Indies, Ranston enriches every reader's understanding of the complexities involved in the creation of our fascinating nation, Jamaica, and the Caribbean region.

Read the complete story at the link above, and learn about Belsario's artwork and much more on Jewish history.

The artist's father served on the jury of the first white man brought up on murder charges for killing a slave in Tortola, and then wrote a London-published report to influence public opinion. Another report he wrote called for protection for the treatment of Africans in the West Indies, to no avail. In addition, the artist's maternal grandfather Alexandre Lindo was involved in the finances of the Haitian revolution.

Included in the book are depictions of the Kingston fires of August 1843, by Belisario and Duperly, as well as reproductions of Belisario's original art work.

There is much more on the book here.

Jamaica: Sephardim, pirates and Rastafarians

A half-hidden Jewish legacy exists in Jamaica, according to an article in The Forward by Shelly R. Fredman.

An unusual resort perched on a spit of land that juts into the Caribbean Sea near Port Antonio, on the island’s resplendently green east coast, Great Huts is the brainchild and life mission of Dr. Paul Rhodes, who was born and raised in Brooklyn in a Jewish family. Rhodes is currently offering Jewish cultural tours, unearthing a rich and varied Jewish past mostly hidden from the typical Montego Bay tourist. Wander Jamaica’s farther reaches, and you will stumble upon Jewish islanders living idiosyncratic yet compelling versions of Eden.


Rhodes, who eventually left Brooklyn to settle in Washington, D.C., first came to Jamaica as a medical student. His love for the people of the island developed as he worked in the almshouses. “I was so moved by what I found there,” he said when I spoke with him in the spring. “The old people were so prayerful and spiritually robust.” In their hymns and chanting, Rhodes heard echoes of his grandfather. The elders’ sense of community reminded him of his boyhood summers spent at Makowsky’s bungalow colony in New Paltz, N.Y.

The story touches on Rastafarians and their Old Testament beliefs, including that they are descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel. Lions of David are all over the island, carved or painted, pointing to a past legacy. Eco- and environmental tourism is represented at the Hotel Mockingbird Hill, created by women who are daughters of Holocaust survivors.

The tours focus on 350 years of a Jewish presence dating to the first Converso who arrived with Columbus, and start in a Kingston hotel - the former home of an early Jewish Portuguese family named Matalone. In those days, the term Portuguese was synonomous with Jewish. There are indentations on the right upper doorframes where mezuzot might have been.

Kingston's one synagogue is the United Congregation of Israelites. The cemetery has 300 Jewish graves back to the 1500s. Some 50 bear the skull and crossbones.

Jamaica’s history includes a chapter on Jewish pirates, a long-forgotten partnership of Jews and pirates in the 15th century against their common enemy — the Spanish government. There are around 200 Jews living in Jamaica today, according to a figure cited by Ben G. Frank in his book “A Travel Guide to the Jewish Caribbean and South America” (Pelican, 2005). Most are intermarried couples with multiracial spouses, according to Frank.

Read more at the link above.

Jamaica: History and a few hurricanes

Planning a family reunion?

A JTA story indicates that choosing the Caribbean during hurricane season might not be the best location. Hurricane Dean hit the Alberga family (from the UK, Canada and Cameroon) as they gathered in Jamaica for their annual visit to their ancestor's birthplace.

There's also information on the history of Jews in Jamaica and the current 200 members of the tribe who live there.

In 2006, Tony Alberga, who now lives in Toronto, co-authored "The Island Of One People," a history of the Jews of Jamaica, with his sister, Marilyn Delevante. She is among the last 200 Jamaican Jews, the dying embers of a community that was founded by Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th century.

At its height in the 1880s, the community numbered more than 2,500 and there were at least eight synagogues. Only Shaare Shalom in Kingston remains active, but the last rabbi left the island in 1978.

In 1849, eight of House of Assembly's 47 members, including the speaker, were Jewish. Parliament meetings were cancelled on Yom Kippur that year.

In 1882, Kingston's great fire destroyed both Ashkenazi and Sephardi synagogues. Some were rebuilt and again destroyed in the 1907 earthquake, while the Montego Bay synagogue was destroyed in the 1912 hurricane.

In 1988, when Hurricane Gilbert battered Shaare Shalom on erev Rosh Hashanah, congregants gathered in the synagogue with the sand floor, welcoming the new year under umbrellas. A traditional feature of Spanish-Portuguese synagogues, sand-covered floors date to the Inquisition, when worshippers footsteps were muffled by the sand. Shaare Shalom was built by Alberga's grandfather and his brothers.

Read more here.

In January, Tracing the Tribe reported on sources for searching Jewish records in Jamaica, including name lists and photographs. Read more here.

Surfing in Jamaica for Jewish records

Surfing in the Caribbean is not exactly my style, but the next best thing is surfing the Internet for Jewish resources in that region.

The Caribbean has had a Jewish presence for centuries. On nearly every island there were Sephardic Jews: They owned Hebrew-named plantations, and were merchants and traders with fleets of ships. On some islands, they were later joined by Ashkenazi merchants.

An excellent book on the subject is The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean by Mordechai Arbell, a former Israeli diplomat who spent years in the region. He has tracked down forgotten cemeteries, spoken to contemporary descendants still on the islands and tracked others to New Orleans and elsewhere. The book is filled with maps, lists and resources.

Jamaican Family Search has extensive Jewish resources. Some are for public viewing, others require paid subscriptions. If your family has Caribbean connections, particularly Sephardic, consider a short-term subscription.

Here are some names for each resource.

-Ashkenazi Congregation, Kingston 1788-1906: AKIN, FRANKS, GATES, KAHN, LEWIS, LYONS, MAGNUS, REUBEN, SAMUELS, WORMS.

-Sephardic Congregation, Kingston, 1809-1902. Some births, marriages and deaths: AARONS, CORINALDI, DACOSTA, DELEVANTE, DELGADO, DOLPHY, FEURTADO, HENRIQUES, IFFLA, LOPEZ, MENDEZ, MOTTA, NIETO, RODRIQUES, SANGUENETTI, VAZ. ALIMEYDA, CORREA, D'AZEVEDO, DE PASS, EDANA, HYMAN, ISAAC, MADURO, OHEB, PEREIRA, REBEIRO, SILVA, YIMENES.

-Amalgamated Congregation and United Congregation of Israelites, 1883-1993. Some births, marriages and deaths: ALBERGA, CROSSWELL, DELGADO, DEPASS, FARMER, KAUFMAN, LINDO, MCCORMAC, NUNES, WHEELER, ABENDANA, ISAACS, LAWTO, WOLFE. ASHENHEIM, BARHAM, CROSSWELL, DACOSTA, DOLPHY, EBEL, HOFFMAN, IFFLA, LYONS, MADURO, MEYERS, MEYERS, NINES, ROSENBAUM, SALMON, STINER, TAVARES, WOLFE.

-Index to Jewish births, marriages and deaths, Montego Bay and an extensive lodge name list 1818-2000.

-Synagogue leadership from the 1850 Jamaica Almanac. Synagogues include the English & German Synagogue (Shahar Yosher), Spanish & Portuguese (Shahar Ashmamaim), Spanish Town (Nevey Shalom), Montego Bay (Beth Yahacob). The Hebrew spellings are those used in the Almanac.

-Jamaican Jews buried in New Orleans, include AARONS, ADOLPHUS, BENJAMIN, BONITO, BRANDON, DACOSTA/DECOSTA, DAVIDSON, D'AZEVEDO, DE MEZA/D'MEZA, DUKE, HENRIQUES.

-Transcriptions and some photographs: Tombstones, Jewish cemetery, Falmouth

-Extracts from A Record of Jews in Jamaica by Jacob APM Andrade, including Tombstones, Will extracts, Patents, Naturalizations, and other items.

Enjoy your surfing !