History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles
- 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 very expensive; recommend finding in a library
Review
This is an encyclopedic survey of Jewish life on Curaçao over more than three hundred years of its existence. Rabbi Emmanuel was the spiritual leader of Mikve Israel during much of the extensive research phase, so he had first-hand experience of communal life on the island. Drawing on documents in half a dozen languages that were stored in archives on three continents, the couple issued the definitive work on the Curaçoan community, which has stood unsurpassed for nearly fifty years in spite of its limitations.
Once the biggest Jewish community in the Western Hemisphere, Curaçao was the "Mother Community of the Caribbean" in whose footsteps every New World congregation aspired to follow. Until the 19th century, it loomed large in the affairs of all the Jews of the region, and its storied colonial synagogue still attests to the island's halcyon days.
The first volume provides a fascinating account of the community's rise to prominence, its accomplishments and setbacks, and its fading into modern obscurity. Rabbi Emmanuel's treatment of the creation of Temple Emanu-El is particularly revealing, and his sense of piercing loss is evident as he mourns the 1963 merger with Mikve Israel that effectively ended 314 years of Western Sephardic civilization on the Island. The introduction relates the extreme tensions over this chapter that existed between him and the post-merger Parnassim, who significantly censored the text only after giving up a multi-year campaign to suppress it entirely.
The second volume consists of a massive appendix that is as long as the entire narrative portion of the work. It includes translations of every communal constitution issued prior to the book's publication, more than 150 pages of marriage records that are invaluable for genealogical research, and numerous other supplementary tables and documentation.
Once the biggest Jewish community in the Western Hemisphere, Curaçao was the "Mother Community of the Caribbean" in whose footsteps every New World congregation aspired to follow. Until the 19th century, it loomed large in the affairs of all the Jews of the region, and its storied colonial synagogue still attests to the island's halcyon days.
The first volume provides a fascinating account of the community's rise to prominence, its accomplishments and setbacks, and its fading into modern obscurity. Rabbi Emmanuel's treatment of the creation of Temple Emanu-El is particularly revealing, and his sense of piercing loss is evident as he mourns the 1963 merger with Mikve Israel that effectively ended 314 years of Western Sephardic civilization on the Island. The introduction relates the extreme tensions over this chapter that existed between him and the post-merger Parnassim, who significantly censored the text only after giving up a multi-year campaign to suppress it entirely.
The second volume consists of a massive appendix that is as long as the entire narrative portion of the work. It includes translations of every communal constitution issued prior to the book's publication, more than 150 pages of marriage records that are invaluable for genealogical research, and numerous other supplementary tables and documentation.
Contents – Vol I
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Contents – Vol II
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