Houses of Life: The Jewish Cemeteries of Jamaica by Rachel Frankel

ISJM Vice-President and architect Rachel Frankel has written a short piece about the Jewish cemeteries of Jamaica for the website of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. This derives from her paper at last January's conference on Jewish Diaspora in the Caribbean Conference, the proceedings of which will soon be published. Rachel will be leading a small team back to Jamaica this spring to continue cemetery documentation.

Houses of Life: The Jewish Cemeteries of Jamaica
by Rachel Frankel

At the outskirts of Port Royal lies Hunt’s Bay Jewish Cemetery, Jamaica’s oldest burial ground no longer in use today. The cemetery has recently been inventoried and mapped, and is now a Jamaica National Heritage Trust Site. Inventory work continues this month on the Orange Street Jewish Cemetery, Jamaica’s two hundred year old bet haim (“house of life”).

Jamaica’s several Jewish cemeteries, which ring this Caribbean island, are not wholly preserved, accessible, or undisturbed, but they contain over three continuous centuries of gravestone imagery, epitaphic language, genealogy, burial patterns, and cemetery site design. Thanks in part to the United Congregation of Israelites Shaare Shalom Synagogue of Jamaica and Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions, these New World necropolises are undergoing inventory, analysis, and preservation.

Read the entire article here.

The Caribbean: Upcoming Conference "The Jewish Diaspora in the Caribbean"

Two view of the Old Jewish Cemetery at Sosua, Dominican Republic
(photos: Stuart Klipper (1990), ISJM files)

The Caribbean: Upcoming Conference "The Jewish Diaspora in the Caribbean" Points Out Need for More Documentation and Study, as Well as Preservation Planning, for Area Jewish Sites
by Samuel D. Gruber

Next week is the international conference The Jewish Diaspora of the Caribbean, to be held at Kingston’s Pegasus Hotel January 12-14 2010 to explore the history, culture, and identity of Caribbean Jewry. The conference is co-chaired by Jane S. Gerber (Professor of Jewish History, The Graduate Center, CUNY) and Ainsley Henriques (Director, the United Congregation of Israelites, Kingston). Please contact either the conference coordinator, Stan Mirvis, smirvis@gc.cuny.edu or Ainsley Henriques, ainsley@cwjamaica.com for further information. The full schedule is posted at http://ucija.org/conferenceaa.htm.

ISJM is a co-sponsor of the conference, and ISJM Vice-President architect Rachel Frankel, will speak on “Remnant Stones: The Significance of New World Portuguese Jewish Diaspora Cemeteries.” Rachel is co-author with Aviva Ben-Ur of the recently published book Remnant Stones, a result of a multi-year documentation project in Suriname of which ISJM has been a sponsor.

There has been a Jewish presence in the Caribbean region for more than 500 years, since the first voyages of discovery by European explorers. Despite long oppression by the Spanish government and Catholic Church, there have been Jewish communities established in territories colonized by the Dutch and English since Dutch Jews settled in Brazil in the 1620s and following (until their expulsion by the Portuguese in 1654). Jewish colonization on Dutch and then English islands took place in the 1620s through the 1650s, and these communities have continued for the most part until today. Formal Jewish communities have existed in many independent former Spanish dominions since the 19^th century.

Throughout the region, including settlement on islands and the South American littoral, there have been or are now scores of Jewish heritage sites, including communal and religious properties and urban areas of settlements and private plantations. Sites include cemeteries, synagogues, mikvot, schools, and commercial and domestic structures. The synagogue and adjacent mikveh on the island of Sint Eustatius has been excavated, and recent investigations have revealed a possible synagogue on the island of Nevis, and there may have been one on St. Martin was well.

Despite my initial hopes for the conference, however, there are too few presentations about historic sites or material culture. This unfortunately reflects a continuing dearth of good information about the architectural and urban contribution of Jews in the Caribbean region, and also about the location and condition of existing remains of synagogue and former Jewish Settlements, plantations, neighborhoods; former synagogues and mikva'ot; commercial enterprises; and cemeteries. Some major synagogue and cemeteries a - like those of Curacao - are studied and well known. But many others remain the subject or little more than the occasional tourist promotion description, and repetition of legendary history. For the most part, and compared to other parts of the world, Caribbean Jewish heritage has been overlooked by architectural and art historians.

Willemstad, Curacao. Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue. Photos: Samuel Gruber,(2007)

This is a great loss, since the Caribbean Jewish culture was dynamic and prosperous, and not - as is often implied - merely derivative of ideas and customs of Jewish centers in Amsterdam and London and few other places. The lack of documentation of specific places, too, puts many of these sites at continued risk - of encroaching development, vandalism, and deterioration due to natural and man made environmental problems (almost total deterioration of the marble gravestones at Curacao due to the acidic pollution of the nearby oil refinery is well documented).

Willemstad, Curacao. Beth Haim Jewish cemetery, with refinery in background)
Photo:Samuel D. Gruber (2007)

ISJM has prepared a proposal to organize a comprehensive survey of Jewish sites in the Caribbean. The project would combine volunteer community-building efforts with professional organization, oversight, description and analysis. Rachel and I would direct the survey. I have extensive experience with this kind of countrywide survey, and she has many years of experience visting and documenting Jewish sites in Suriname and Jamaica. We have compiled an impressive list of local experts - many of them already colleagues- to be engaged for specific part of the project.

Here is a summary of the project phases. ISJM will begin to seek funding support in the weeks following the conference.

PHASE I: Inventory, Survey, Documentation

In the first phase of the project ISJM will partner with local religious, historic and preservation organizations to compile a complete list of all sites in the region in the following categories:

• Sites founded by Jews or for Jews specifically for Jewish religious and ritual activity, including synagogues, mikvot (ritual baths), and cemeteries;
• Sites founded by Jews or for Jews for Jewish cultural or communal activity, including schools, community centers, hospitals, oldage homes, etc;
• Sites of considerable significance to the Jewish history of the region, including areas of primary and predominant Jewish settlement, and selected specific residential and commercial founded, owned and used by Jews and particularly noted for some significant activity of Jews.

All sites will be identified as to location (by map and GPS), current ownership and use, and general condition. Using available historic research the historical, architectural or other significance of each site will be briefly described. Whenever possible, new documentary photography will be carried out on site.

PHASE II: Planning

In the second phase of the project, all sites will be reviewed and evaluated a diverse committee of experts to evaluate the collective significance of sites and the significance of individual sites. From this process will develop a regional feasibility study for future development of region-based historic preservation, heritage tourism and Jewish and secular educational programs.

PHASE III: Conservation, Education, Presentation

The third phase is a long term effort to implement a range of protective and conservation measures, and to develop integrated education, commemorative and tourism programs and policies.

To support or participate in this survey please contact me directly. More information will be available later in 2010.

Jamaica: History of the Jewish Diaspora of the Caribbean Conference Scheduled for January 2010

Jamaica: History of the Jewish Diaspora of the Caribbean Conference Scheduled for January 2010

(ISJM) Ainsley Henriques of the Jewish Heritage Center at the United Congregation of Israelites in Kingston, Jamaica, has announced plans for the History of the Jewish Diaspora of the Caribbean conference to be held in Kingston, Jamaica next January 11-14. The conference is co-sponsored by the United Congregation of Israelites in Kingston, Jamaica, the UWI, the American Sephardic Federation, and the City University of New York.

The co-chairs of the conference are Professor Jane Gerber of City University of New York and Ainsley Cohen Henriques. Conference coordinator is Stan Mirvis.

The venue is the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. The schedule of speakers will be released shortly.

Later in the month Panama City will host the 12th annual conference on Jewish Communities of Latin American and the Caribbean (see announcement below).

Jamaica: Hunt’s Bay and Orange Street Cemeteries – March 2009

CVE Volunteers at work documenting Jamaica cemeteries, March 2009

Jamaica: Hunt’s Bay and Orange Street Cemeteries – March 2009
By Shai Fierst and Sam Petuchowski

For several years ISJM has been co-sponsor of a project to document the cemeteries of Jamaica. Last month a small team of volunteers spent time on the island revisiting the Jewish cemetery at Hunt's Bay, and beginning work documenting the cemetery on Orange Street in Kingston. Team members Shai Fierst and Sam Petuchowski contributed the following report for the newsletter of CVE (Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions), one of ISJM's partners in the project.

Jamaica’s Jewish community is one of the oldest and storied communities in the Americas with impressive contributions to art, literature, politics, and more in the non-Jewish and Jewish spheres in and outside of Jamaica. A request by Ainsley Henriques’ of the Jamaican Jewish community for inventorying of Jamaica’s Jewish cemeteries was a catalyst for a partnership between CVE (Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions) and the community that began a decade ago and continued in March 2009 with Rachel Frankel leading a team to continue inventorying the Hunt’s Bay Cemetery and begin inventorying the Jewish Cemetery on Orange Street in Kingston. The International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM) is a co-sponsor of this project. The goal of the work beyond collecting data is to post the information on the World Wide Web thereby making Jamaica’s historic and difficult to access sites available to a worldwide public.

The Hunt’s Bay Cemetery is Jamaica’s oldest cemetery and was the burying ground for the Jews of Port Royal who lived across the harbor where the high water table of the peninsula prevented burial. Hunt’s Bay Cemetery is located to the west of Kingston having been established before the founding of Kingston. Hunt’s Bay’s earliest grave stone dates to 1672 and its latest dates to the mid 19th century. 360 grave markers remain at Hunt’s Bay. Many markers have been destroyed or looted for construction over time.

The Jewish Cemetery on Orange Street, located near the beautiful and century-old Shaarei Shalom Synagogue, contains stones from the early 19th century and is still in use. The cemetery is located in the newer, northern end of Kingston. Previous to the Orange Street Cemetery, Kingston's Sephardim buried their dead in the no longer extant Old Kingston Jewish Cemetery in the older, southern part of Kingston's downtown. 18th century grave stones from the Old Kingston Jewish Cemetery were transposed to the Orange Street cemetery when the former was closed likely due to new sanitation laws of the growing city. The grave stones are found along the north and east cemetery walls, often partially covered under earth excavated by burials.

The Hunt's Bay Cemetery contains bluestone, limestone and marble grave markers with epitaphs largely in Portuguese and Hebrew. The horizontal markers rest upon brick bases varying in height. The older section of the Orange Street Cemetery contains horizontal grave markers mostly of marble elevated almost three feet above ground on red brick bases, with epitaphs written, for the vast majority, in English, with less and less Portuguese and Hebrew.

The inventory work discovered that many of the grave markers in the Orange Street Cemetery are not in their authentic locations likely due to destruction by looters and then further destruction by well-intentioned restoration. Natural disasters, such as an earthquake in 1907, likely also impacted the cemetery. The Jewish community employs persons to care for the grounds, but there is still an incredible amount of work that needs to be done in order to maintain the site. There is also much work that needs to be continued with regard to inventorying, as the March 2009 work achieved documentation of only a small portion of the cemetery.

Building relationships with Jamaican Jews such as Michael Cohen and Michael Nunes added to the experience of the CVE volunteers and hopefully our Jamaican Jewish counterparts will continue to work with CVE groups in the future. The work week also included a visit from the Archaeological Society of Jamaica along with Professor James Robertson from the University of The West Indies.

Jamaica: Review in Forward of Painter of the Caribbean

Jamaica: Review in Forward of Painter of the Caribbean

In November I mentioned the publication of a lavish new book about Jamiaican Jewish artist Isaac Mendes Belisario.

Edward Gomez has reviewed the book for The Forward:

Painter of the Caribbean
In Colonial Jamaica, a Jewish Artist and the Slaves

By Edward M. Gómez
Wed. Dec 31, 2008

Jewish families who trace their roots back to England, Spain, Portugal and beyond have distinguished themselves for generations as merchants and financiers in the Caribbean. Reminders of the contributions they have made to the varied cultures and societies of the region can be found in the graveyards and in postcolonial, national archives of what are now its many small, independent countries.

With this history in mind, Jamaica’s Mill Press has published “Belisario: Sketches of Character.” A large, lavishly illustrated volume that looks like a coffee-table art book, it is, in fact, a sweeping saga of overlapping family histories, a high-drama page-turner complete with a Central American property-sale scam (the offering of an entire, imaginary country, that is) that makes the Bernard Madoff and not-so-long-ago Enron frauds look, in its publisher’s words, “like child’s play.” Part biography and part cultural history, the book sets the stage for a look at the work of the 19th-century, Jewish-Jamaican artist Isaac Mendes Belisario (1794–1849), about whom little hitherto was known. Exquisitely produced by a small publishing company based in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, it offers a vivid portrait of colonial-era Caribbean Jewry in general, and of merchant-class Jews in Jamaica in particular.

Read the full story here.

Jamaica: Volunteers Wanted for More Cemetery Survey

Jamaica: Volunteers Wanted for More Cemetery Survey

Following up on last year's work surveying and documenting the 18th century Jewish cemetery at Hunt's Bay, Jamaica, the Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions is calling for more volunteers to continue the Jewish cemetery inventory again this year in the Kingston area, surveying two smaller historic cemeteries, and well as checking inventory work, done last year at Hunt's Bay. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe settled in Jamaica as early as 1530 where they played important roles in commerce and the sugar industry.

Volunteers will inventory, photograph, and map the Orange and Elliston sites and check work at Hunt's Bay. Lodging is at The Alhambra Inn (doubles roughly $90/night. volunteers pay their own travel and lodging costs, though some on-the-ground expenses are covered - pending funding from sponsors.

Contact: ahershaia@aol.com Cost: Inquire

Jamaica: New Book About Jamaican Jewish Artist Isaac Belisario (1794-1849)

Jamaica: New Book About Jamaican Jewish Artist Isaac Belisario (1794-1849)

The following is adapted from a press release about the new book. I know little of the artist - whose life and work certainly sounds interesting - and I do not know the author. But it is good to be identify at least one other Jewish artist from the Caribbean besides Pissarro (and I am sure there were many).

******

New York, New York (November, 2008) – The Mill Press, a publishing house concentrating in Jamaican heritage, art and culture, is officially launching BELISARIO: Sketches of Character, a historical biography of the Jewish Jamaican artist, Isaac Mendes Belisario, in New York on November 19, 2008. The book, researched and written by Jackie Ranston, was twenty years in the making and acts as a narrative, a biography, a reference book, and a fine art book in one.

A richly illustrated, museum-quality book, BELISARIO: Sketches of Character presents the artist's paintings and lithographs in stunning detail depicting the less celebrated inhabitants of Jamaica and the turbulent times in which Belisario lived and worked.

Based on previously unpublished records, BELISARIO: Sketches of Character reveals new insights on Isaac Mendes Belisario’s life and works. Beginning with the histories of the Sephardic Jewish families from whom Isaac Mendes Belisario (1794-1849) is descended, the book traces the story of Belisario and his ancestors through the Spanish Inquisition, their migration to London and Jamaica, and the fight against slavery, until Belisario produces his pivotal work: Sketches of Character, a series of lithographs depicting the brilliant Christmas masquerades known in Jamaica as ‘Jonkonnu’ (John Canoe).

BELISARIO: Sketches of Character is available from the publishers for US$120, or a signed and numbered Collector’s Edition of BELISARIO: Sketches of Character for US$200. Visit www.belisariojamaica.com or email info@millpress.com for more information.

ISBN: 978-976-8168-16-0

About the Author

Jackie Ranston is a researcher and writer specializing in Jamaican family histories. Her published works include The Lindo Legacy, They Call Me Teacher, From We Were Boys and First Time Up, all studies of important personages in Jamaican history. Born in London, England, Ranston has resided in Jamaica since 1970 after her marriage to a Jamaican graphic designer and book illustrator. She has worked as an account executive for a major Jamaican public relations firm; was a government chief public relations officer and a consultant editor to The Gleaner, Jamaica’s oldest existing newspaper which first appeared in 1834.

Together with her husband and grown children Ranston runs a publishing company focusing on Early Childhood Education and Jamaica’s cultural heritage.

Jamaica: The United Congregation of Israelites (Synagogue “Shaare Shalom”) Jewish Heritage Center in Kingston expands digitalization program.

Jamaica: The United Congregation of Israelites (Synagogue “Shaare Shalom”) Jewish Heritage Center in Kingston Expands Digitalization program.

(ISJM) Ainsley Henriques reports to ISJM that the Jewish Heritage Center at the Uniited Congregation of Israelites has begun digitizing its collection of historic photographs from the Ernest de Souza Collection. The Center’s reference library is also being cataloged. The next task in the Center’s program is be to catalog the Kritzler collection of historic materials, papers, pamphlets, magazines and books. The Center looks forward to a significant increase in school tours to the museum, which has been rated by a visiting Educational expert in religious education to the Ministry of Education as “one of the best that she has ever seen”

ISJM has partnered with the Center on the documentation of the 18th century Jewish cemetery at Hunt's Bay, outside of Kingston.

Jamaica: Documentation of 18th Jewish Cemetery at Hunt's Bay

Jamaica: Documentation of 18th Jewish Cemetery at Hunt's Bay
(Ainsley Henriques, Rachel Frankel, Anne Hersh and Samuel Gruber contributed to this article)

In January (2008), Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions (CVE) sponsored a successful project to inventory and document existing conditions of the historic Hunt's Bay Jewish Cemetery, the oldest known Jewish cemetery in Jamaica. ISJM provided logistical support and funds to purchase equipment necessary for the survey.

The cemetery was the burial place for Jews, many fleeing the Inquisition and anti-Semitism in Europe. They came to Port Royal, the 17th century entré port, a desolate sandy spit at the end of what is now known as the Palisadoes peninsula enclosing Kingston Harbor. They found freedom to worship with few restrictions (but higher taxes). Burial at Port Royal were not allowed, so Jews rowed the dead (as in Amsterdam & Venice) across the harbor to the now isolated cemetery at Hunt's Bay. Neglected for the most of the last century, the cemetery was overgrown and unkempt. Aware of the need to care for the historic site where the oldest grave known dates to 1672, Ainsley Henriques of the United Congregation of Israelites Shaare Shalom Synagogue of Jamaica arranged for it to be cleared. CVE's mission is to assist Caribbean agencies and organizations with historic preservation projects. CVE has worked in many Caribbean countries over the past sixteen years and has worked on Jewish cemetery documentation in Spanish Town and Falmouth, Jamaica. The United Congregation of Israelites Shaare Shalom Synagogue of Jamaica together with the Jamaican Heritage Center contributed the boundary survey of Hunt's Bay Cemetery in digitized and hard format, services of a professional local photographer and local transportation for CVE team, all of whom were volunteers, who paid their own expenses.

ISJM member and architect Rachel Frankel, who served as one of the leaders for the Falmouth Jewish Cemetery documentation project, led the work at Hunt's Bay. Ms. Frankel has previously worked extensively in documenting the Jewish sites of Suriname, especially the remains of the 1685 Bracha v'Shalom synagogue, and three historic Jewish cemeteries.

The documentation at Hunt's Bay includes:

• A map of the cemetery
• Photographs of each gravestone (in color digital and black and white 35mm)
• Assessment of the art, architecture and condition of each grave
• Transcription and translation of the multi-lingual epitaphs, checked against the work published in The Jews of Jamaica by Barnett and Wright.
• Indices of names, dates, etc.

All documentation from the project is now being sorted, analyzed and digitized. At the completion of the project, hard and digitized copies will be presented to The United Congregation of Israelites Shaare Shalom Synagogue of Jamaica as well as to the AJA (American Jewish Archives) in Cincinatti. The AJA will also receive the original field notes. ISJM will assure the material is publicly accessible – much of it on-line.

Concurrent with the documentation project was the XIth annual conference of the Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean (UJCL), held at Kingston. The UJCL represents Progressive and Conservative congregations in Aruba, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and Surinam. Trinidad and Tobago were admitted for membership during the Kingston conference. The highlight of the conference was a tour the Hunt's Bay Cemetery. The entire conference traveled to the cemetery, inspected the graves, heard a short set of lectures on the work being done by the CVE volunteers and then held hands in a large circle and recited the Mourners Kaddish. The project has inspired UJCL members to call for more Jewish heritage documentation and preservation in the Caribbean and South America. ISJM encourages its members to step forward to help achieve this goal.
Photos and Links

For an audio and visual tour of the project see Marco Werman's report on Public Radio International's The World from Febraury 25, 2008 at:
http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/16200&answer=true

On the Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean (UJCL) conference in Kingston see:
http://wupj.org/Publications/Newsletter.asp?ContentID=112#CONVENES

For more on the Jewish community of Jamaica see: United Congregation of Israelites
http://www.ucija.org/

For extensive photos of Hunt's Bay Cemetery taken by one of the volunteers see:
http://picasaweb.google.com/alonigi/HuntSBayCemetery