Caribbean and Latin

After repeated attempts to rebuild Jewish life in the New World were quashed by the long arm of the Inquisition, Sephardim began to establish a serious toehold in the Caribbean in the mid-seventeeth century.  Long before North America emerged as the safe haven it later became, the Caribbean and Guianas hosted an efflorescence of Jewish communities that were literally islands of refuge for persecuted Jews fleeing Europe.  Although it is hardly recognized in popular discourse today, North American Jewish life may not have been possible without the material and cultural assistance of its Caribbean older sister during its formative years.

Jews in Another Environment

  • Subtitle:  Surinam in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century
  • Author:  Robert Cohen
  • Publisher:  Brill, 1991 – 350 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/91014402
  • Availability:  in print – see publisher's website
  • Review:  click HERE for a short review of the book and its table of contents

History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles

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  • Subtitle:  [None]
  • Authors:  Rabbi Isaac Samuel Emmanuel and Suzanne Amzalek Emmanuel
  • Publisher:  American Jewish Archives, 1970 – 2 vols, 1165 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/74108296
  • Availability:  out of print and expensive; recommend finding in a library
  • Review:  click HERE for a short review of the book and its table of contents

A Record of the Jews in Jamaica

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  • Subtitle:  From the English Conquest to the Present Time
  • Author:  Jacob A. P. M. Andrade
  • Publisher:  The Jamaica Times, Ltd., 1941 – 282 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/42015210
  • Availability:  out of print and hard to find at any price; recommend finding in a library
  • Review:  click HERE for a short review of the book and its table of contents

The Records of the Earliest Jewish Community in the New World

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  • Subtitle:  [None]
  • Author:  Arnold Wiznitzer
  • Publisher:  American Jewish Historical Society,  – 108 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/54002217
  • Availability:  out of print and expensive; recommend finding in a library
  • Review:  click HERE for a short review of the book and its table of contents

The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean

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  • Subtitle:  The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas
  • Author:  Mordechai Arbell
  • Publisher:  Gefen, 2002 – 384 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/2001054490
  • Availability:  out of print and expensive; recommend finding in a library
  • Review:  click HERE for a short review of the book and its table of contents