Like the Cassipora cemetery, the second cemetery does not seem to have had a separate section for Jews of African descent. However, it is known that in 1790, the leader of the black Jews, Joseph de David Cohen Nassy was given a marginal grave "in a swamp and only one foot deep (35)". Although the cemetery is not distinguished, it may be that the grave of this Jew is at the second cemetery where its south portion has lower ground compared to that of Cassipora and thus where one might encounter swampy shallow earth.

What remains of the synagogue, originally of brick with flat clay tile roofing, sits in the midst of the no longer apparent village square. The ruin of the synagogue measures 94 feet along its east west axis and 43 feet across its north south width (see Fig. 20.15) (36). According to Teenstra, who visited Jodensavanne in 1828, the synagogue was 33 feet high and had two pointed gables (37). Teenstra’s account concurs with that of Essai Historique, in that the synagogue had large brown hardwood columns with a properly constructed wooden vault rising above. In this double height space, reserved for the men, existed a large ark of beautiful cedar wood, where the Scrolls of the Law were kept; "it is of a beautiful architecture, and ornamented with very well executed sculptures which reflect much honor (considering the infancy of the colony when it was built) upon the one who fashioned it (38)." Opposite the heckal, on a kind of raised platform or second story, beyond the main sanctuary which was the section for the men, was the section for the women, which sat above the synagogue’s auxiliary spaces which were separate from the sanctuary. The extant remains and historical descriptions of the main sanctuary suggest that it duplicates the north-south, split congregation, bifocal layout with seating facing both the ark and reader’s platform as exists in Amsterdam and is typical in other Sephardic synagogues. However at Bracha veShalom, the women’s seating does not conform to that of the men as it does in Amsterdam and other places. At Jodensavanne the women faced the ark and the whole of the sanctuary, as a conventional audience does a stage. Also, the women’s gallery was set back from the men’s sanctuary, rather than above it.

At Bracha veShalom, the women’s section could have held at least eighty women, about twenty more Jewish females than were inhabitants of Jodensavanne in 1684 (39). Each row (see Fig. 20.16) could have been made up of four five person benches and there could have been at least four rows of benches, with leftover room in the rear of the gallery where views to the sanctuary would have been more or less obscured and thus seats there would have been deemed unacceptable and undesirable. The men’s section had capacity for at least 160 individuals, roughly fifty five more males than the settlement had in 1684. While it is known that in the eighteenth century male Jews of African descent were relegated to the bench of the Abelim (mourners) (40), it is unknown if this was the case in the first years of the synagogue. Naturally, in 1685, at the time of constructing the synagogue, the Jews of Jodensavanne would have built a structure that could support a hoped for expanding population.

Essai Historique provides further descriptions of Bracha veShalom:"as its other ornaments [the synagogue had] the crowns of silver with which the Scrolls of the Law are decorated, and other necessary furnishings of the same metal, large candlesticks of yellow copper with several branches, and chandeliers of several kinds which cost the individuals who donated them a considerable sum. Below the women’s gallery there is a chamber where the regents hold their meetings, having next to it the archives of the Jewish community kept in very good order. Everything there is so properly built and the synagogue has such an indescribable majesty, that although its size is quite ordinary, it elicits the admiration of those who see it for the first time (41)."

The open town plan of Jodensavanne, defined by four streets meeting at right angles forming an orthogonal gated courtyard with entrances at each of its four cardinal points, with the synagogue at the center, is unprecedented in synagogue architecture and synagogue site planning. Nonetheless it is not unexpected in the context of Jodensavanne, a Jewish haven, where for the first time, Jews had the opportunity to design virgin landscape and construct it according to their needs, beliefs, and hopes. Where their brethren in Europe lived in cramped and, in some instances, walled cities where permission to build a synagogue was difficult to obtain and Jews were rarely given any choice of the site upon which to build their synagogue, the Jews of Jodensavanne found themselves in a place with almost no man-made environment and full liberty to site and build their synagogue on the acreage given them by their own Samuel Nassy in 1682 (42). Thus, the Jews had the unique opportunity to model and build their view of the world and how it should be. Therefore, in accordance with Talmudic interpretation, the synagogue was sited upon a hill and was the tallest building in the town. Additionally, the synagogue was adjacent to a river; convenient for access to flowing water for the purification rituals. More unusual and significant, the siteplan for Jodensavanne permitted approach to the synagogue courtyard from all sides; from north, south, east, and west. Despite the harsh reality of the threat of raids and revolts from slaves, former slaves living independently in their newly established villages in the interior, European powers, and native Americans, the town was laid out as if in a perfect world. In an environment where the river was the medium of transport, the Jews built four roads, in parallel and perpendicular pairs, beside the riverfront. These came together in idealized geometry to form the synagogue square. The courtyard surrounding the synagogue and defining the square had four gates, each at the midpoint of its four sides. Three of the courtyard gates led directly into the synagogue. Two of these, on the north and south sides, led directly into the sanctuary. It is unlikely that this plan evoked anything but the age old Messianic hope of the Jewish people and echoed the Messianic literature and expectations popular in this era.

The unprecedented synagogue and town plan, instead of having buffer auxiliary buildings on its courtyard perimeter as in Amsterdam and elsewhere, had only railings and gated entrances at each of its four sides. It also had a geometrically idealized village square, which testified to the Jew’s hope for the coming of the Messianic age, as anticipated daily by their (and all observant Jew’s) recital of the Amidah:

Sound on the great Shofar the summons for our freedom; set up the banner to gather our exiles, and bring us together from the four corners of the earth soon unto our own land. Blessed art Thou, Lord who wilt gather in the dispersed of Thy people Israel.

The town plan of Jodensavanne, an unprecedented place of full Jewish life, symbolically, and spatially, if not architecturally, refers most certainly to the ideal of an age of peace; an end of war and of oppression, as stated in Isaiah 43: 5-6:

Fear not for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.

Despite that slavery is sanctioned by the Bible, consider the irony of the design intent, with the majority of Jodensavanne’s inhabitants held in bondage.

Unfortunately what remains today of Bracha veShalom is not necessarily authentic. There have been two efforts of ruin preservation in this century, both of which have resulted in some misleading effects. The first clean-up of Jodensavanne was in the 1940s. The Dutch colonists used Nazi and German prisoners, formerly held in Indonesia, to perform the labor of cleaning-up both the cemetery and the ruins of the synagogue of Jodensavanne. About thirty years later another clean-up was performed. As a result, the extant remains can not be relied upon to be authentic when judging from a non-invasive field investigation. Archival documents, historical descriptions, and comparative studies are critically necessary to reconstruct the architectural history of the synagogue.

For example, the Voorduin sketch of 1860 of Bracha veShalom shows that windows did not exist at the ground level of the synagogue’s east wall (see Fig. 20.17). Yet the extant remains indicate that there were four windows at what would have approximated ground level inside the raised sanctuary. To further confuse matters, the sketch shows, at the upper height of the sanctuary, the synagogue had three windows. Such asymmetric fenestration, with three windows above and four below, would not have existed on even the most common of buildings, at the time, nevermind the synagogue.

It is, as Voorduin’s sketch indicates, quite common to eliminate fenestration on the portion of the east wall where the Torah is kept. The synagogue in Amsterdam exemplifies this. Also in St. Eustatius, a Dutch colony in the Caribbean, the synagogue there, initially built in the early 1730s and then rebuilt in 1772, does not have fenestration on the portion of the east wall where the hekhal existed. Rather, the eastern facade (exterior) at St. Eustatius employs faux windows on the portion of wall where, on the interior side, the ark is kept, thereby creating the illusion of a facade of full fenestration. Perhaps at Bracha veShalom, the fenestration on the eastern facade did something of the same. It is easy to conclude that such design was merely architecturally correct -- wanting to avoid the monotony of portions of blank wall. However, it may express the persistence of the masking, secrecy, and illusion practiced by crypto-Jews in places where the Inquisition existed. For example, some historians believe that the sand on the floor of the sanctuary at the synagogue at Jodensavanne, as well as at those synagogues built later in the capital of Suriname, and on the island of Curacao, is thought, in part, to recollect the need to muffle the sounds of the footsteps of the men who gathered to read the Torah in places where the Inquisition was feared.

Techniques of masking and the making of masks were also common in the rich artistic traditions of the Africans enslaved on the plantations of the Jews. The earth spirits, previously mentioned, were often presented as masks (whereas the supreme being is never pictured as images in Africa, for they are so distant and so comprehensive in their nature that they are not to be imagined (43). Ironically, this is much in keeping with the Torah’s second commandment which was less conservatively adhered to by the Jews of Jodensavanne). Masking is also an important technique for expression among the various secret societies of Africa which form to govern communal life or comprise a particular guild (44).

In Suriname, where Africans no longer were among their own kin or ethnic group, they developed new languages, religious rites, and burial practices, many of which persist to this day as practiced by their descendants. The African techniques of masking, secrecy, and illusion persisted in Suriname not only because they were universally familiar to the diverse population of Africans but because they provided strategies required for survival under the institution of New World slavery.

Bracha veShalom had a typically Dutch style profile. The squared off top parts of the end brick walls served two purposes for building in Holland. They create an architectural detail for chimneys and provide a practical way to finish off masonry; pointed top ends do not typically or practically exist in masonry construction. However, there would have been no need for a chimney at the synagogue in tropical Suriname. Might then the typically Dutch style of the synagogue building express the Jew’s patriotism, remembrance of, or deference to The Netherlands, the nation that gave them and their brethren back in Amsterdam religious rights? Or is it the style imposed by a Dutch architect, in absentia, back in Amsterdam where Jews were excluded from the building guilds?

Regarding the Bet Haim at Jodensavanne, three critical questions arise: Did there ever exist a House of Seven Circuits where the ritual washing and circlings occurred? If not, how did the burial rites proceed and how did they come to be? Do the graven images on Jodensavanne’s tombstones, which so closely resemble those of contemporaneous Portuguese Jewish cemeteries in Amsterdam and Curacao, suggest an intended uniformity in the sepulchral art of Portuguese Jews throughout the New World and Europe or was it simply due to the community’s lack of sufficiently skilled craftspeople and of adequate stone? Does the irregular layout of the cemetery’s tombstones, often in opposition to rabbinical rules on burial placement arrangements, reflect the persistence of individuals who desired unconventional burial adjacencies due to intermarital ties (unusually close amongst the Sephardim of the time) or might it express a Kabbalistic idea that cemeteries be labyrinthine? Or, does it reveal special conditions of burial placement for Congreganten Jews of African descent?

The discussion of the African antecedents of the architecture and culture of Jodensavanne is enormously important. African and Jewish cultures were in close contact in Suriname and clearly affected one another. Benoit’s drawing (see Fig. 20.18) documents or perhaps illustrates such proximity: On the right is the workshop of an African-American tailor, complete with his African name (Koffi is a common West African name, particularly among the Eve people of West Africa) prominently displayed. On the left is a shop of clothes and other ready made goods. Its proprietor is a merchant of Sephardic stock, with his ethnic name similarly displayed.

From Zimmerman’s map of 1877, another example of Jewish and African-American cultural proximity exists. The map shows an enlargement of a section through the Suriname River at the location of Jodensavanne. The map shows the synagogue, and adjacent to it and specifically noted, a Bomax ceiba tree, the formal embodiment of immortal ancestors in West African worship, and referenced as such on Zimmerman’s map. Does this represent Jewish tolerance of African religion or African adoption of ground considered holy by the Jews? Do the Jewish converts and offspring of Jewish fathers and African, non-Jewish mothers -- considered by authoritative Jewish law to be non-Jews -- who were raised, educated and identified as Jews, exemplify the Jews of Jodensavanne’s rejection of the usual reluctance of Jews to accept converts (45) or does it simply imply dominance by the ruling minority? Whichever may be the case, are there parallels to be found in the architecture of the synagogue? In the configuration of the cemeteries? Why at Bracha veShalom is the design of the women’s gallery less inclusive as it compares to its predecessor in Amsterdam? Did it reflect less honor given to Jodensavanne’s Jewish women, some of whom, as early as 1685, were of African as well as Ashkenazic descent? Does the consolidation of functions within one building at Bracha veShalom, as opposed to the design of Amsterdam’s synagogue and subsequent synagogues in Suriname and the Caribbean with their separate auxiliary buildings, simply express economical use of materials (shared walls, foundations, and roofs) or is it evocative of the freedom and optimism felt by these uniquely privileged New World Jews, anticipating, with open arms and architecture, the Messianic Age?

By the mid eighteenth century, Jodensavanne was in decline. Sugar prices had dropped, many planters found themselves in default on their loans, and Bosnegro (enslaved Africans who escaped the plantations and established their own distinctively ethnic communities further into the country’s interior) raids on the plantations threatened all. In 1757, John Greenwood, an American artist visiting Jodensavanne, noted in his diary that the place, "is as empty as the church is of Sunday, the Jews being all gone to the plantations, except a few vagabonds who make this place their sanctuary or asylum, when they run from the town for debt or any misdemeanors (46)." At the time of the hundred year anniversary jubilee, in 1785, the synagogue of Bracha veShalom was already a relic of the past, visited and cherished as an historic monument by Jodensavanne’s former inhabitants and their descendants. By 1787 meetings of the Mahamad were no longer held at Jodensavanne, now replaced by Paramaribo. By the 1830s Jodensavanne was all but abandoned. 1865 was the last time the synagogue was used, and in 1873 the roof of the synagogue caved in and no subsequent repairs were made.

By the early eighteenth century some of the Jews of Jodensavanne had already begun to move to Paramaribo, where they constructed new synagogues and cemeteries and established themselves primarily as merchants, or they had emigrated to other places in the Caribbean and North America or returned to Amsterdam. In Paramaribo, there are two synagogues, both of wooden construction. The first, built in 1716, replaced an earlier synagogue which was converted into a house for the sexton of the Spanish Portuguese synagogue. A new synagogue, Neveh Shalom (House of Peace), was completed in 1723. However, this building was completely rebuilt between 1834 and 1842 (see Figs. 20.19 and 20.20). In 1735 Neveh Shalom was sold to the Ashkenazi Jews, and the Spanish Portuguese Jews built a new synagogue, Zedeq ve Shalom (Justice and Peace), that same year. This synagogue, although never completely rebuilt, was significantly altered when its roof was raised to provide gallery space for the women (see Fig. 20.21) (47). It is unclear where the women sat prior to the gallery addition. Despite the grandeur of these buildings, the Portuguese Jews only considered their building a house of prayer, not a synagogue. In their regulations, the Jews stated that there was only one synagogue, the one at Jodensavanne (48).

At the end of the eighteenth century a synagogue of the Jews of African descent existed in Paramaribo. Prior to the establishment of their synagogue, these Jews founded their own society, in 1759, which they called Darkhei Jesarim (The ways of the Righteous). Their synagogue was demolished around 1800 (49). Unfortunately, little is known of the architecture of this latest, now lost, synagogue of Paramaribo. However, the earlier two synagogues exist to this day and manage, against great odds, to survive. Although these two synagogues share architectural features with the one at Jodensavanne and with other Sephardic synagogues, they lack Jodensavanne’s unique elements. Absent are the Messianic design intent in the synagogue complex plan, the Dutch-style building profile, attached auxiliary spaces, faux windows (if in fact they did exist at Jodensavanne), the set back and perpendicularly aligned women’s gallery, and most apparently, the brick construction.

Within walking distance of the Jewish cemetery at Jodensavanne is the so-called Creole (in Suriname, meaning descendant of an African slave) cemetery. Those graves still visible date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The heart shape found on some of the graves in this cemetery (see Figs. 20.22 and 20.23) is most likely a Sankofa (go back to fetch it), a symbol for the important proverb of the Akan people of West Africa, from whom many Surinamers descend, "Se wo were fi na wo sankofa a yenkyi" [it is not a taboo to go back and retrieve if you forget]." (50); It may also be an Akoma (the heart) symbol of love, patience, goodwill, faithfulness and endurance (51).

When displayed, the Sankofa symbolizes the wisdom in learning from the past in building for the future. Elsewhere, in Africa and in African-American cemeteries, the Sankofa is found. One example, in particular, is that on the remains of an eighteenth century coffin in the New York African Burial Ground (52). The shape at the tip of the grave marker in Suriname symbolizes the same, although upside down. The Sankofa symbol, typical of African symbols, is flexible and can be adapted as required (53). Descendants of the African diaspora in Jodensavanne, not unlike the Jews, held respect for the belief that wisdom was passed down by the ancestors to future generations. Surinamer-Africans expressed this belief on their tombs, in particular, through this age old symbol, as did the Jews with their graven images of Biblical episodes, for the edification of posterity.

In the nineteenth and twentieth century Sephardic cemetery in Paramaribo, the heart shape Sankofa and Akoma symbols appear (see Fig. 20.24), coinciding with the star of David (see Fig. 20.25), the Hebrew name of the deceased, and the typical Sephardic flat horizontal tomb. However, gone are the illustrative engraved images. Here, the horizontal stone tombs, European in origin, are joined by sepulchral art of African origin, thereby forming the only uniquely Jewish African style of tomb known in the New World.

Notes

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