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Assimilation and emigration present the greatest challenges to one of the western hemisphere’s oldest communities
By 1849, enough Jews were serving in Jamaica’s House of Assembly that it didn’t meet on Yom Kippur
Read more: Jamaican Jews see intermarriage, conversion as their future | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/jamaican-jews-see-intermarriage-conversion-as-their-future
By 1849, enough Jews were serving in Jamaica’s House of Assembly that it didn’t meet on Yom Kippur
Reynolds used the living waters of Kingston’s Rockford Mineral Baths for the ritual immersion required to complete her conversion to Judaism, formally becoming a member of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere: Jamaican Jewry.
The tiny, racially mixed community — “200 souls,” as Jewish community leader Ainsley Henriques puts it — may well depend on Jews by choice like Reynolds.
Even prior to her conversion, Reynolds, who had studied Judaism on and off for more than a decade, was a choir member and soloist at Congregation Kahal Kadosh Shaare Shalom, Jamaica’s only synagogue.
Once a regular churchgoer, Reynolds, 52, said she was drawn to Judaism initially by her desire in the late 1990s to have a day of rest. A visit in 1998 to the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York gave Reynolds, a child psychotherapist, a deep sense of connection to Judaism.
“I felt like I was coming home,” she said.
A year or two after the museum visit, she discovered that her mother-in-law’s family was Jewish; her husband had no idea.
Given the Jewish community’s centuries-long history in Jamaica, it’s not shocking that Reynolds’ husband has Jewish roots. The 73-year-old Henriques, who wears the multiple hats of community leader, historian and Israel’s honorary consul, believes that as many as 10 percent of Jamaicans have Jewish ancestry.
“We’ve sown our seeds wide and far,” said Joseph Matalon, 67, whose family is among Jamaica’s newer arrivals, having come to the island from Damascus, Syria, in the 20th century
Matalon also cautions that there may be some racial bias in many Jamaican claims to Jewish ancestry.
“It is important to be white” or have light skin, he said of the residents of a country that is 90 percent black. “When they tell you that their great-great-grandfather was Jewish, they’re saying they’re white.”
Reynolds says she does not know if she has any Jewish ancestry.
“People like success and like to be connected to success; I have a feeling they see the Jews as successful,” said Marilyn Delevante, 76, a retired physician and author of “The Island of One People: An Account of the History of the Jews of Jamaica,” which she wrote with her brother, Anthony Alberga.
Jewish roots in Jamaica run deep. Some conversos — Jews who were forced to convert during the Inquisition, but continued to practice Judaism in secret — may have arrived on the island with Christopher Columbus in 1494 and during his later trips, according to Delevante’s book.
In 1577, Jews were free to live and work on the island, but it wasn’t until the British conquered Jamaica in 1655 that Jews were permitted to practice their religion openly and establish a Jewish community, including synagogues and cemeteries.
Efforts are under way to catalog, clean up and restore 13 remaining cemeteries, only one of which is actively used.
Since the 17th century, Jamaica’s Jews have been an integral part of the country as merchants, doctors, lawyers, accountants, artists, entrepreneurs and government officials. The first synagogue was built in Port Royal in the mid-1600s, then destroyed in a 1692 earthquake that leveled much of the area.
For much of the nation’s history, Jews have been well-integrated in the community at large, and intermarriage has been common — despite some anti-Jewish sentiment in the early years of British rule.
Even prior to her conversion, Reynolds, who had studied Judaism on and off for more than a decade, was a choir member and soloist at Congregation Kahal Kadosh Shaare Shalom, Jamaica’s only synagogue.
Once a regular churchgoer, Reynolds, 52, said she was drawn to Judaism initially by her desire in the late 1990s to have a day of rest. A visit in 1998 to the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York gave Reynolds, a child psychotherapist, a deep sense of connection to Judaism.
“I felt like I was coming home,” she said.
A year or two after the museum visit, she discovered that her mother-in-law’s family was Jewish; her husband had no idea.
Given the Jewish community’s centuries-long history in Jamaica, it’s not shocking that Reynolds’ husband has Jewish roots. The 73-year-old Henriques, who wears the multiple hats of community leader, historian and Israel’s honorary consul, believes that as many as 10 percent of Jamaicans have Jewish ancestry.
“We’ve sown our seeds wide and far,” said Joseph Matalon, 67, whose family is among Jamaica’s newer arrivals, having come to the island from Damascus, Syria, in the 20th century
Matalon also cautions that there may be some racial bias in many Jamaican claims to Jewish ancestry.
“It is important to be white” or have light skin, he said of the residents of a country that is 90 percent black. “When they tell you that their great-great-grandfather was Jewish, they’re saying they’re white.”
Reynolds says she does not know if she has any Jewish ancestry.
“People like success and like to be connected to success; I have a feeling they see the Jews as successful,” said Marilyn Delevante, 76, a retired physician and author of “The Island of One People: An Account of the History of the Jews of Jamaica,” which she wrote with her brother, Anthony Alberga.
Jewish roots in Jamaica run deep. Some conversos — Jews who were forced to convert during the Inquisition, but continued to practice Judaism in secret — may have arrived on the island with Christopher Columbus in 1494 and during his later trips, according to Delevante’s book.
In 1577, Jews were free to live and work on the island, but it wasn’t until the British conquered Jamaica in 1655 that Jews were permitted to practice their religion openly and establish a Jewish community, including synagogues and cemeteries.
Efforts are under way to catalog, clean up and restore 13 remaining cemeteries, only one of which is actively used.
Since the 17th century, Jamaica’s Jews have been an integral part of the country as merchants, doctors, lawyers, accountants, artists, entrepreneurs and government officials. The first synagogue was built in Port Royal in the mid-1600s, then destroyed in a 1692 earthquake that leveled much of the area.
For much of the nation’s history, Jews have been well-integrated in the community at large, and intermarriage has been common — despite some anti-Jewish sentiment in the early years of British rule.
Read more: Jamaican Jews see intermarriage, conversion as their future | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/jamaican-jews-see-intermarriage-conversion-as-their-future
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