On October 12, 1785 the synagogue, Bracha veShalom (Blessing and Peace), in Jodensavanne (Jews’ Savannah) of the Dutch colony of Suriname, celebrated its hundredth anniversary. Governor Wichers, The Councils of Police, notable citizens from the capital city of Paramaribo, and some sixteen hundred other people attended. There were tables with over three hundred dishes and one thousand Chinese lanterns. People ate and drank. Speeches were made, Hebrew prayers were delivered, and poems were recited. The concluding celebration, a splendid ball at midnight, lasted until dawn (1).

Today all that remains of Jodensavanne, the first permanent Jewish plantation settlement in the Americas, is a brick ruin of the formerly grand synagogue (see Fig. 20.1), the first of any architectural significance in the New World. Additionally there remain two overgrown cemeteries each with marble and bluestone graves inscribed primarily in Hebrew and Portuguese, some with illustrative imagery. Also, there exists a third weathering cemetery with uniquely and artistically crafted wood and concrete gravemarkers. Furthermore, it is possible that remains of an earlier and more modest synagogue of the settlement lies buried in the jungle (2). Jodensavanne is remotely located north of the Amazon River Basin.

Fig. 20.1 Courtyard entrance gate posts and east wall remains of the synagogue, Bracha veShalom, Jodensavanne [Jews' Savannah], Suriname. Built in 1685. Last used in 1865. Photograph by Rachel Frankel, 1995.

Planting primarily sugar, the Jews on the upper reaches of the Suriname River in 1667 (see Fig. 20.2) were predominantly Sephardic. They came to Suriname from a variety of places. Some came from Amsterdam as well as other cities in Europe. Others came from Brazil where mainly they had been planters (3) and been introduced to the practice of slavery. By 1664 roughly two hundred Jews, who had been settled for less than a decade in neighboring Cayenne while it was in Dutch hands, came to Suriname. The Jews from Cayenne originated in such places as Livorno (Italy), Amsterdam, and Brazil. Jews might also have come to Suriname from the Pomeroon settlement in what was the Dutch colony of Essequibo (today, the Republic of Guyana) (4). Some claim that Jews came to Suriname in the 1650s from Barbados, with the English Royalist Willoughby. While the exact demographic make-up of the Jews who settled Suriname may be debated, it is certain they were not a homogenous group. Amsterdam’s Sephardic community served as the religious authority, but the Jews of Suriname had many other places, references, and experiences from which to draw to form their identities.

Fig. 20.2 Anonymous map of 1667 documents evidence of "Jews" on the upper reaches of the Suriname River. In the collection of Carter Brown Library.

Likewise, the Africans enslaved in Suriname on the plantations of the Jews were not a homogenous group. Although they were, at this time, predominantly from what was referred to as Guiny, on the west coast of Africa in the area of the Congo, they were a mixture of several nations, nations who often were at war with one another on the African continent (5). Upon the arrival of a shipment of enslaved Africans, planters used a divide-and-rule strategy and are said to have not "put two [of the same ethnic group] in any one lot (6)." While most of the Africans in Suriname were brought directly from Africa, some were brought to Suriname by Jews who emigrated there from other sugar planting colonies in the New World.

While there were many differences among the religious practices of the Africans in Suriname, they all believed in a supreme power, an omnipotent god on whose supernatural power man is wholly dependent. In addition to the supreme being there are also earth-spirits and the world of ancestors, the last of which are much closer to man, and directly influence his life (7). The belief in the world of ancestors for the Africans in Suriname meant belief in the transmigration of souls, from one body into another. This meant that they would, upon death, return to their own countries where they would be reincarnated. Death for these enslaved, frequently tortured, and sometimes executed Africans on Suriname’s plantations, was seen as freedom. Like the Jews, many of the Africans were circumcised (8).

Suriname became a Dutch colony in 1667. The peace treaty of Breda confirmed the Dutch title to Suriname and ceded New Amsterdam, later New York, to the British. In the 1660s privileges were accorded to the Jews, first by the English, and then again by the Dutch. These rights granted the Jews exemptions and immunities both as an ethnic minority and as Dutch burghers. Furthermore, the Jews had the opportunity to live their lives as an autonomous religio-cultural enclave. These privileges were the most liberal Jews had ever received in the Christian world, for it had not been since the first century, when Rome made it possible for some privileged Jewish subjects to become citizens of the Empire, that Jews had benefited from such rights.

Prior to the 1685 construction of the synagogue Bracha veShalom, there did not exist in the New World, any synagogue of major architectural stature. However, the Jews of Suriname did have European architectural sources from which to draw for inspiring the design of a great synagogue: Jacob Jehudah Leon Templo’s model of Solomon’s Temple, and the illustration (see Fig. 20.3), first published in 1642 and then again in 1667 in Biblia Hebraica by the Amsterdam Jewish printer Joseph Athias, had provided an influential model for the construction of Amsterdam’s 1675 united Sephardi congregation’s "Esnoga [synagogue]." Nonetheless a synagogue is not the Temple, for the latter was believed to be instituted by the Lord, whereas a synagogue becomes sacred because God’s law is read there by men. In addition to drawing upon the authoritative work on Solomon’s Temple by the Jesuit Fathers Geronimo Prado and Juan Baptista Villalpando, Templo contributed some differences. Templo conceived of a more sober, less baroque, more Dutch vision of the Temple (9). Templo’s model, which he displayed in his home, and the published illustrations, undoubtedly provided architectural imagery for the design of Bracha veShalom as well.

Fig. 20.3 Anonymous colored engraving of Solomon's Temple according to Jacob Juda Leon Templo, taken from "Biblica Hebraica", published 1667. Courtesy of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam, from the book "The Esnoga: a monument to Portuguese-Jewish culture, Amsterdam, 1991"

The magnificent synagogue of Amsterdam (see Fig. 20.4), built ten years prior to that of Jodensavanne, provided a significant precedent for Jodensavanne’s synagogue, for not only were the Jews of Amsterdam closely linked through business, family ties, and historic background to those in Suriname, they also observed the faith identically. The services in Suriname attempted, if not succeeded, to duplicate those of Amsterdam. The Jews of Amsterdam and those of Suriname both referred to themselves as "of the Nation," the nation of Portugal, or as "Portuguese Jews." Both groups of Jews were of the same double Diaspora, first from Roman-occupied Palestine, and secondly, fourteen centuries later, from the Iberian Peninsula.

Fig. 20.4 Southwest view of Amsterdam's Esnoga, inaugurated in 1675: auxiliary buildings in foreground fortress the sanctuary building.

Nonetheless, however much the two communities resembled one another, there were significant differences. Although both communities used outsiders to design and build their synagogues, these outsiders were quite different from each other. In Amsterdam, where Jews were banned from the Dutch guilds, the congregation’s leaders selected Elias Bouman, a gentile, as the architect for their new synagogue. Similarly, a gentile, Gillis van der Veen, served as the Amsterdam synagogue’s master carpenter. In Suriname, likewise, the Jews presumably depended on others (10); primarily Africans (11), to build their synagogue, but it is still unknown who designed Bracha veShalom. Additionally, the two communities existed in different environments. The Jews of Amsterdam lived in an urban and cosmopolitan environment surrounded and dominated by Gentiles. The Jews of Suriname lived in an isolated autonomous colonial agricultural settlement (see Fig. 20.5) with 105 Jewish men, in 1684, outnumbering Jewish women by a ratio of almost two to one. Enslaved Africans constituted eighty four percent of the total Jodensavanne population, with 543 males and 429 females.

Fig. 20.5 View from the west of the synagogue "Bracha veShalom", taken from the lithograph "Vue de la Savanne des Juifs sur la Riviere de Surinam", P.J. Benoit, "Voyage A Surinam, La Haye, 1839

Additionally, there was a small minority of enslaved American Indians as well as those more numerous who maintained their freedom (12). Furthermore, in Amsterdam there was an Ashkenazic community of Jews who had their own monumental synagogue. In Jodensavanne, there was no Ashkenazic community, only ten to twelve Ashkenazic Jews who, according to Essai Historique, resided at Jodensavanne through the bonds of marriage. Although there were other Europeans and religious minorities living in Suriname at the time of the construction of Bracha veShalom, including the pietiest sect of Labadists whose utopian settlement existed further up on the Suriname River, the various European groups lived apart from one another. In 1684 Jews made up twenty five percent of the total European population of Suriname (13).

For all Jews, the most sacred religious act is that of reading the Pentateuch, or Torah, the first five books of the Bible believed to be given to Moses by God. The Torah, considered in its widest sense, is the Lord’s will and deed (14). Objects in which the Torah is stored and the spaces it traverses on its way to being read become sacred. The Torah is kept in the hekhal [ark] and read from the tevah [reader’s platform]. Typical of Spanish-Portuguese synagogues as far back as those of Italy of the early seventeenth century (which are thought to have influenced that of Amsterdam) is a bifocal lay-out with the hekhal and tevah at opposite ends of the sanctuary. The heckal is always on the side of the sanctuary facing Jerusalem. In the western world this is the eastern wall. The tevah is opposite it, at the western end of the sanctuary. Also typical of Spanish-Portuguese synagogues is that half the congregation sits on the north side of the sanctuary and the other half on the south side. Each half of the congregation faces both the hekhal and the tevah. This split-congregation, bifocal layout not only activates the reading the Torah, as it is walked from one end of the sanctuary to another; from the hekhal to the tevah, to be read, but it dynamically demonstrates the focus of the faith. This floor plan configuration perfectly describes that of Amsterdam’s synagogue (see Fig. 20.6), and many others.

Fig. 20.6 Interior view, facing east, of Amsterdam's Esnoga. "Tevah" (reader's platform) in foreground. "Hekhal" (ark) in background. Photograph courtesy of Sephardic Congregation of Amsterdam.

In traditional orthodox Judaism, Jews must learn Hebrew, study Torah, and practice its teachings. However, Jewish law exempts women from required attendance due to domestic obligations. The Torah can not be publicly or ritually read unless ten men are present. Subsequently, space must be created for keeping the Torah and for gathering to read it. Jewish men are esteemed if they participate in reading the Torah and are scholars of the literature. Jewish women, quite differently, are responsible for executing the domestic laws and teachings of the Torah. During the centuries of the Inquisition, when Jews were forbidden to gather to study Torah, Judaism persisted cryptically, primarily in the privacy of the home. In this period women were often the keepers of the faith, taking over roles formerly held by men. They conducted marriages and performed other rituals of Judaism which had to be performed in secret, usually in the confines of a crypto-Jew’s home (15). Synagogues are not, typically, the realm of women. In the Amsterdam synagogue, as in most of the Spanish-Portuguese, women wishing to attend services sat separately in a gallery reserved exclusively for them, elevated, directly above that of the men (16). In other European synagogues, since the fourteenth century, women sat separately from the men, sometimes in an annex elevated above the men and sometimes to the side (17). The women’s gallery at Jodensavanne was, as shall be shown, different from that of Amsterdam.

Although it is not clear where converted male Jews may have sat in the Amsterdam synagogue, it is known that they were never appointed to official posts in the Jewish community and the Jewish law stipulating that a convert not be given a post with coercive authority was followed. Furthermore, in 1644, the men of the Mahamad (governing body) decreed that "circumcised Negro Jews" were not to be called to the Torah or given any honorary commandments to perform in the synagogue (18). In Suriname, in the eighteenth century, this lack of full privileges among both the male and female Jews of African descent would lead to unprecedented disruptions and acts in the greater Jewish community.

There are additional dissimilarities between the synagogue of Amsterdam and that of Jodensavanne. At Amsterdam, the synagogue plan is a complex of buildings, at the center of which is the sanctuary building (see Fig. 20.7).

Fig. 20.7 Plan of the Amsterdam Esnoga complex. Sanctuary building at center, isolated from surrounding buildings housing auxiliary functions. 1=Hekhal. 2=Tevah. 4=Men's Entrance to Sanctuary. 8=Women's Entrance to Stairs to Gallery. B=Main Entrance to Synagogue Complex. Courtesy of Historical Buildings Department, Amsterdam, from the book "The Esnoga: a monument to Portuguese-Jewish culture

An asymmetrical courtyard surrounds the sanctuary building on three sides. Auxiliary buildings, such as the religious school, the library, and the mikveh (ritual bath) surround the courtyard. Although there are several entrances to the courtyard, through the wall of auxiliary buildings, and several to the synagogue, the western entrance dominates the plan. Unlike in Amsterdam’s synagogue, at Jodensavanne the synagogue plan, including the sanctuary and auxiliary spaces, are all assembled in one building (see Fig. 20.8).

Fig. 20.8

Furthermore, the synagogue building existed at the center of a four sided symmetrical courtyard, and instead of being protected by a perimeter buffer of buildings, the synagogue was surrounded only by a wooden gate with identical gate entrances at each of the four sides. Three of the four gates led directly to the three entrances to the synagogue. The west gate led to the entrance hall and auxiliary spaces of the synagogue. The north and south gates led to the symmetrical entrances to the synagogue sanctuary. The two synagogues are further distinguished from one other stylistically. The exterior of the Amsterdam synagogue expresses Classical symmetrical architecture whereas that of Jodensavanne recollected Dutch vernacular (see Fig. 20.9)and exhibited asymmetry on its north and south facades.

Fig. 20.9 View of Jodensvanne with Bracha veShalom, the tallest building, on the far right, "Post Gelderland en Jodensavanne" noted in the field by G.W.C. Voorduin, Luitenant ter Zee, 1860/62. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library.

Just outside of Amsterdam, on the Amstel River, at Ouderkerk, is the cemetery of the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam. In 1614 the first burial took place. A small gravestone bears the inscription of a Hebrew poem in which the deceased, a child, himself speaks and says that he was the first to be buried in the cemetery. This cemetery is renowned for its illustrative engraved tombstones which some say are in defiance of the second commandment in the Torah (Exod. 20: 4-5) against graven images (a measure against idol worship). The ohelim (solid tent or prism) tombstone form found at Ouderkerk resemble the grave markers in Spanish Moslem cemeteries (19). More common at Ouderkerk, and also found in the Sephardic cemeteries in Curacao, Suriname, and other places, are the flat horizontal slabs with imagery depicting episodes of the Biblical name of the deceased. Imagery referring to an individual’s life are also common. The sources of the imagery came from the illustrative publications, Bibles especially, of the day (20). According to Joseph Gutmann, "the stones at Ouderkerk [and Curacao] differ entirely from the austere tombstones of their Dutch Protestant neighbors and from their Ashkenazim brethren. Such elaborately sculpted horizontal Jewish tombstones were unknown in Medieval Spain. Devoid of figural ornamentation, the medieval Spanish Jewish tombstones followed the practice found in Muslim cemeteries (21)."

Also at the Bet Haim (House of Life, a common term for a Jewish cemetery), at Ouderkerk, is the cleansing house or Rodeamentos House (House of Circlings). The first name refers to the house’s function as the place where the ritual washing of the dead body takes place. The second name refers to the seven circular walks which are made around the coffin of the deceased male. The house was built in 1705 and although there is no known information about a cleansing house that existed before 1705, it is thought that one did exist (22).

The cemetery and burial practices at Ouderkerk in some ways foretell what will occur at Jodensavanne. Firstly, Ouderkerk replaced an earlier cemetery in Groet which was unsatisfactory for the Jews because of its distant location from Amsterdam, and bodies were, up until 1634, removed from Groet and re-buried at Ouderkerk. Thus, one can conclude that it was permissible, among the Sephardim of Amsterdam, not only to start new cemeteries but also to remove and re-inter the deceased. Secondly, the original parcel of land of the Ouderkerk cemetery was augmented by subsequent purchases hence one can conclude that unlike the Ashkenazim who were prohibited to add to the land of a cemetery, these Sephardim could. Thirdly, adjacent to the cemetery at Ouderkerk is the so-called del Sotto cemetery. This cemetery resulted from a dispute between the Jewish community and the del Sotto family who, in 1670, purchased their own tract of land for their family burials. In 1691 the dispute was resolved and three quarters of the del Sotto family cemetery was merged with that of the community; however, one quarter remained in the hands of the del Sotto family who continued to be buried there (23). Thus, there is a precedent for the separate family cemetery. Fourthly, the deceased were transported to the riverside location of the Ouderkerk cemetery by boat as would have been the case for Jews of Suriname whose plantations and cemeteries and synagogues lined the Suriname River and later, whose town homes were further down river in Paramaribo. Fifthly, although the feet of the deceased usually are placed facing east towards Jerusalem (24), at Ouderkerk, and at Jodensavanne, the graves do not uniformly adhere to this custom. Sixthly, unlike the Ashkenazim, many Jews of Amsterdam, like those before them in Spain, acquired burial places during their lifetime (25). Jews of Amsterdam, Curacao, and Suriname were also known to commission their tombs during their lifetime. Lastly, in 1647, it was decided that a separate section of the cemetery at Ouderkerk would be marked off for the burial of all the "Jewish Negroes and Mulattos" except for those Negroes and Mulattos who had married whites or those who were born of a marriage performed under a bridal canopy with a religious ceremony (26).

Almost as early as the Jews came to Suriname, they buried their dead with expensive imported tombstones much resembling those at Ouderkerk and on the island of Curacao in the Caribbean. The first cemetery of the Jewish settlement, referred to as the Cassipora Cemetery (because of its proximity to the creek so named which flows into the Suriname River), holds about two hundred tombstones which may date back at least to 1669, if not before. The latest grave is thought to be of 1840 (27). Like Ouderkerk, the graves are inscribed with texts in as many as three languages; Hebrew, Portuguese and Dutch. There are a few ohelim (see Fig. 20.10) and some of the more numerous horizontal graves at Cassipora have illustrative graven images.

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Fig. 20.10 Ohelim (prism shaped) tombstones at Cassipora Cemetery. Tomb of David de Meza, inscribed with Hebrew calendar date of death, 5495 (1735) and Christian calendar date, 1739. One side of stone carved in Hebrew and the other in Portuguese. Photograph by Rachel Frankel.

The tree being axed down by the angel of death (see Fig. 20.11), or the hand of God, is an ancient and popular Jewish symbol, especially in sepulchral art. Its antecedent appears as early as in the mosaic floor at the fifteen-hundred-year-old Bet Alpha synagogue in Israel, where Abraham is shown about to sacrifice the life of his son. This image refers usually to a life taken before its time, typically that of a young person.

Fig. 20.11 Tomb at Cassipora Cemetary with two graven images. Above are cross bones and a skull, a common image, alluding to the passage of time and the transistory nature of the world or that the deceased was a surgeon. Hand emerging from the unknown, wielding an ax, cutting down a tree refers to a life ended before its time (see Rochelle Weinstein's dissertation, Sepulchral Monuments of Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, N.Y.U., 1979). Photograph by Rachel Frankel, 1997.

The Cassipora cemetery shares another similarity with that of Ouderkerk. According to the rigorous investigative work done in 1995 by Dr. DeBye and Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Strelick, it appears that the Da Costa family had a separate section of the cemetery and that it was not uncommon for families to group themselves together (28), as at Ouderkerk. However, unlike Ouderkerk, the majority of tombs at the cemetery at Cassipora are oriented similarly but unusually northeast, rather than east.

The question of a separate section of the Cassipora cemetery for Jews of African descent remains unanswered. According to the late Robert Cohen, the 1754 hascamoth (rules) continued a trend of earlier bylaws, containing a full section about the relationship between black and white Jews. Cohen quotes the 1754 hascamoth, "since experience has taught how prejudicial and improper it would be to admit Mulattos as Yahidim [full members], and noting that some of these have concerned themselves in matters of the government of the community [the Jewish community], it is resolved that henceforth they will never be considered or admitted as Yahidim and will solely be Congreganten, as in other communities (29)." However, based on the reactionary tone of the hascamoth, it is likely that in early Suriname, Jews of African descent enjoyed fuller rights than they did in subsequent years and in other places.

In 1682, the Jews of Suriname secured a land grant from Samuel Nassy, a Jewish planter on the Suriname River. This property, a bit down the river, about one mile north, from the Cassipora Cemetery (and, it is said, from the location of the earlier synagogue, see Fig. 20.12), according the Essai Historique, existed on fresh ground, on the Savannah (30). This location would become the new town center, Joods Dorp (Jews’ Village), and the site of the community’s second synagogue and cemetery.

In 1684, one year prior to the time of the construction of Bracha veShalom, what would become known as Jodensavanne, contained a population of at least 1,158 people, with Africans outnumbering Jews at least six to one (31). Central to Jodensavanne’s culture were its riverside sugar plantations, grand synagogue, and cemeteries, built primarily by African hands. Jodensavanne flourished for a century. In fact, it was profitable enough to have helped to finance the construction of the Congregation Shearith Israel’s early synagogue in Manhattan, as remembered twice a year by its present day congregation (32).

Despite the absence of any precedent for New World synagogue architecture and the Jew’s inexperience in building design and construction concerning edifices of any significance, Bracha veShalom was built. Essai Historique tells that the synagogue existed on high ground, thirty to thirty six feet above the river to which it was adjacent. The synagogue sat in the middle of a spacious rectilinear courtyard, met by four cross streets, with large houses built at its corners. This village square measured 450 feet long by three hundred feet wide. The houses, according to the Essai Historique, were "grandes & commodes, quoique d’une Architecture mediocre qui fent encore l’economie de nos ancetres: il y en a cependant quelques unes passablement belles [large and commodious, although of a mediocre architecture which as of yet expresses the thrift of our ancestors; however there are some which are passably attractive]." (33); The lithographes of Benoit and Voorduin confirm the synagogue’s hilltop location and show it as the tallest building at Jodensavanne’s town center.

The choice of site for Bracha veShalom is not unusual. According to Talmudic interpretation, a synagogue should be located on the highest site in a town; also, the synagogue should be taller than other houses in a town. Furthermore, it is convenient to locate a synagogue near water for the ritual bath and other religious observances.

A new cemetery was also established at this time, the community thereby abandoning its first, except for the interment of those members of the old families who wished to be buried near their ancestors (34). This second cemetery is but a few hundred yards east from Bracha veShalom. It contains about five hundred marble and bluestone tombs. The flat stones rest horizontally, have epitaphs in Hebrew, Portuguese, and/or Dutch and illustrative graven images, much like those at Cassipora and Ouderkerk (see Figs. 20.13 and 20.14). The inscriptions date from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The arrangement of the graves, like Cassipora and Ouderkerk, is not regular per cardinal direction. It is yet to be determined if bodies were removed from the Cassipora cemetery and re-interred at the later cemetery.

Fig. 20.13 Tomb at second cemetary of Jewish settlement with image of ruler on throne and poetic Hebrew text, transcribed and translated by the late Manfred Lehmann during his 1959 visit to Jodensavanne, and reproduced in the 'Jerusalem Post', April 7, 1978. The epitaph reads, "the monument of the tomb of a man who was always first in every holy enterprise....who chanted pleasantly the songs of Israel within the congregation name Bracha veShalom in the city of Suriname, the wise and understanding communal leader, the exalted, pious and humble Rabbi David Hezekiah Baruch Louzado, of blessed memory, who in his lifetime also was 'Mohel' [performed circumcisions] and 'Rosh Yeshiva'[Head of Academy] named 'Gemiluth Hasadim' [Performance of Charitable Deeds], who departed this life at the will of the Lord of heaven and earth on the second day of the new moon of Iyyar 1825. Photograph by Rachel Frankel, 1997.

Fig. 20.14 Tomb at second cemetary of Jewish settlement with Portuguese text and image indicating that the deceased was taken before his/her time. Photograph by Rachel Frankel, 1995