The Jewish Historical Museum contains a special exhibition:Jews in the Caribbean, four centuries of history in Suriname and Curaçao. For the first time in history, this provides an overview of this colonial history, which was preceded by quite a bit of research. The Jewish influences still appear to be omnipresent in the Caribbean, but are often not recognized as such.
It is not easy to summarize four hundred years of history in a single exhibition. Where do you put the focus? The makers chose to start at the beginning and show the visitor the different countries along the timeline. From Amsterdam we follow Jewish migrants to Brazil, then New York and finally Curaçao and Suriname. The compilers use more than three hundred objects from home and abroad, some of which have never been exhibited before. Rare religious objects, archival documents, maps, paintings, letters, photos and utensils show the daily life of Jews in the West. To bring structure to the many stories, the exhibition focuses on social life, religion and trade. All in all a special history.
Religious freedom and trade
Many Sephardic Jews, who died at the end of 16 e century before the Inquisition from Portugal and Spain, they ended up in Amsterdam. Here they were given relatively many freedoms. They were allowed to practice their religion in their own synagogue and to trade. However, practicing a craft was not possible. For that you had to be a member of a guild and that was forbidden for Jews. The Sephardic Jews took their widespread trade networks with them to Amsterdam and with it wealth and economic growth for the city.
From Amsterdam, Jewish traders followed the West India Company (WIC from 1621) and settled successively in Brazil and New Amsterdam. In Brazil, the Jews were mainly involved in the local slave trade, but they were also allowed to practice crafts here. This new freedom attracted many migrants and the Jews formed the largest group in the early 1640s. A replica of a map of the coastal city of Recife shows how a long street crosses the city:the Jodenstraat.
Mother congregation in the breach
In 1654 the Dutch were expelled from Brazil and the Jews returned that year to Amsterdam or to the new colony:New Netherland in North America. The capital was New Amsterdam, later New York. The strict Calvinist Peter Stuyvensant was the first governor to govern this colony and he was not happy with the newcomers.
The exhibition shows a petition from Sephardic Jews from the mother municipality of Amsterdam to the board of the WIC and the mayors of Amsterdam. They wanted to have Stuyvesant called into question because he did not allow Jews into New Netherland. The petition was successful to the extent that the Jews were allowed to settle and trade, but openly professing their religion or practicing crafts as in Recife was not included here. That is why many of them quickly moved on to Curaçao and Suriname, where they were given more religious freedom. For a long time, the Jewish communities here constituted a third to a half of the white population.
Research reveals gaps
The emphasis in this exhibition is on the Jewish presence in Curaçao and Suriname. Curator Julie-Marthe Cohen conducted intensive research into this for two years. Cohen:“About the Jewish arrival and presence in Amsterdam and then the West until the 19 e century, much research has been done. The gaps were in our knowledge of the Jewish communities in the 19 e a 20 e century. This exhibition is therefore certainly intended as an incentive for further scientific research.”
By comparing the Jewish communities in Curaçao and Suriname, Cohen saw many similarities, but also special differences. “A plantation culture developed in Suriname and Curaçao developed as a trading colony. This had major consequences for the two Jewish communities.”
Until about 1920, the Sephardic Jews were the only Jewish community on Curaçao and they became very prosperous through trade. They were part of the elite on the island and had monumental villas built in the Scharloo district. Their shops and businesses were located in the Punda commercial district.
Photos, objects and interviews show what Jewish mundane life must have looked like, including the care of the children by the Yayas, the colored nannies. Some scale models show famous Jewish buildings such as the Sephardic synagogue, the interior of which was a copy of the interior of the synagogue in Amsterdam. The mother municipality in Amsterdam remained very important for the communities in the West for a long time. This is where the rabbis were trained and the religious objects made that ended up in the Caribbean.
In the twentieth century, the influence of liberal Judaism from America grew and young people in particular increasingly left the island to settle elsewhere. Especially after the uprising in 1969, in which the colored population revolted against the white elite and set fire to many shops, many Jews left. In particular, the poorer High German Jews, who had come to the island from the 1920s, saw parallels with the pogroms (organized attack on the Jewish population) in Tsarist Russia and left.
Trade culture versus plantation culture
Today the Jewish community in Curaçao (the Sephardic and High German community has merged) does not exceed one hundred and fifty people. Cohen:“An important difference with Suriname is that the Jewish community here is much less assimilated with the rest of the population. It remains an elitist, white upper class. And although there are mulattoes (children of a Jewish father and a colored mother), they are not talked about in Curaçao. There is shame about these illegitimate children, while that is not the case in Suriname at all. Mixed couples just lived there.”
Scientific research has never been done into the differences between assimilation in Curaçao or Suriname, but through her own research for this exhibition, Cohen thinks she has found an explanation. “In Suriname, like other Dutch people, Jews owned plantations and slaves. But when this plantation culture collapsed after an economic crisis at the end of 18 e century, the plantation owners became impoverished and moved to Paramaribo. Here they mixed with the local population, who already consisted of many different cultures, such as High German Jews, mulattoes and freed slaves. Mixed families are very normal here and mulattos are accepted by the Jewish community in Suriname, unlike in Curaçao.”
The Surinamese part of the exhibition also shows a piece of slavery history, which is inextricably linked to the Surinamese plantation culture. The plantations of the Sephardic Jews were mainly located along the Suriname River. A special experience when you walk through the museum is that the slave chains and images of corporal punishment opposite the also 18 e century Torah scroll and a unique memorial lamp from Jodensavanne. Jodensavanne was a completely autonomous Jewish village and Jews had no such freedom anywhere else in the world.
Slaves who managed to escape attacked the plantations, further undermining the economic situation. Once living in Paramaribo and mixed with other cultures, more and more Jewish traditions were lost. In particular, the children and grandchildren from mixed relationships stopped practicing the Jewish religion.
Cohen:“Today's Jewish community is small, but their legacy lives on in many originally Jewish words, culinary habits and customs. And that is more than we thought beforehand, according to our research. How is that possible? Suriname is known for the peaceful coexistence of cultures and religions and most Jews who have not left have been absorbed in this typical mixed culture. Every Surinamese has Jewish blood in them, but they often don't know that themselves. Many Jewish names can also be found, such as former football player Edgar Davids, which point to Jewish ancestors.”
For the project Suri-Jewish Surinamese elders went in search of Jewish influences in Surinamese culture and in their family tree. The films about their search and the often surprising discoveries can be seen during the exhibition.
Coinciding with the exhibition is the book Jews in the Caribbean, edited by Julie-Marthe Cohen. Various experts and scientists have contributed to the collection about four centuries of history in the West.
The exhibition in the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam can be visited from January 31 to June 14, 2015.