Jewish in the Caribbean

                            Curaçao Curaçao has the oldest active Jewish congregation in the Americas—dating to 1651—and the oldest synagogue of the Americas, in continuous use since its completion in 1732 on the site of a previous synagogue. The Jewish Community of Curaçao also played a key role in supporting early Jewish congregations in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, including in New York City and the Touro Synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island.                  Dominican Republic  Converso Merchants...

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Jewish in South America. Part IV

                      Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is currently home to the largest Jewish community in the Caribbean, with over 3,000 Jews supporting four synagogues; three in the capital city of San Juan: one each Reform, Conservative and Chabad, as well as a Satmer community in the western part of the island in the town of Mayaguez known as Toiras Jesed for Minyanim information. Many Jews managed to settle in the island as secret Jews and settled in the island's remote mountainous interior as did the early Jews in all Spanish and Portuguese colonies. In the late 1800s during the Spanish-American War many Jewish American servicemen gathered...

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Jewish in South America. Part III

                           Mexico New Christians arrived in Mexico as early as 1521. Many of these conversos had fled Spain to escape the Inquisition, but no infrastructure was left by them in what is the modern day Mexican Jewish community. Due to the strong Catholic Church presence in Mexico, few conversos and even fewer Jews migrated there after the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. Then, in the late 19th century, a number of German Jews settled in Mexico as a result of invitations from Maximilian I of Mexico, followed by a huge wave of Ashkenazic Jews fleeing Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. A second large...

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Jewish in South America. Part II

Colombia Marranos fled the Iberian peninsula in search of religious freedom and escaping from persecution during the 16th and 17th centuries. It is estimated that some of them escaped to northern areas of Colombia, which at the time was known as New Granada. Most if not all of these people assimilated into Colombian society, although traces of Sephardic Jewish rituals are to this day, often unknowingly, practiced. In the 18th century, practicing Spanish and Portuguese Jews came from Jamaica and Curaçao. These Jews started practicing their religion openly at the end of the 18th century, even though it was not officially legal to do so. Once Judaism was made a legal religion after independence, the government granted the Jews a plot of land...

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Jewish in South America. Part I

  Argentina Jews fleeing the Inquisition settled in Argentina, but Argentina assimilated into society "is not Jewish." Portuguese traders and smugglers in the Virreinato del Río de la Plata were considered by many to be crypto-Jewish, but no community emerged after the independence of Argentina. After 1810 (and about mid-nineteenth century), Jews, especially from France, began to settle in Argentina. By the end of the century in Argentina, as in America, many Jews came from Eastern Europe (mainly Russia and Poland) fleeing Tsarist persecution. Upon arrival they were called "Russians" in reference to their region of origin. About 250,000 Jews now live in Argentina, the vast majority of whom reside in the cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba,...

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