Curaçao

Jews have lived in Curaçao, a small island off the coast of Venezuela, since the 17th century. Many of the Sephardim came from Holland as merchants with the Dutch West India Company others fled from the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. In 1732 the Congregation Mikvé Israel was formed and later it merged with other communities to become the Mikvé Israel-Emanuel Congregation. The first picture is of the beautiful Mikvé Israel Synagogue in Willemstad, Curaçao. It has sand floors and exquisite mahogany wood. The Shabbat services on Saturday mornings have Portuguese included in the prayers, perhaps the only Caribbean synagogue that does so. The community's large cemetery is located near an oil refinery that unfortunately has stripped the etchings of a majority of the tombstones. Some of them, though, were preserved so that one can see their unique markings like trees being cut down by a hand coming down from the heavens.

Following the Sephardim

Though I am a "typical" Ashkenazic Jew with ancestors from Poland, Belorussia and the Ukraine, I have always had a fascination about Sephardim. My first real contact with them came during my Junior Year Abroad at Hebrew University where I met many Israelis who came from places other than Eastern Europe. I loved their traditions and cuisine and saw myself becoming a "wannabe Sephardi". As the years went by, I spent time in places significant to Sephardic history such as in Portugal and the Caribbean. I visited their synagogues and researched their history, finding out how they managed to survive in very unlikely places. I hope to share my findings in this blog with photos and maps of their journeys and invite others to write in as well.