Beautiful Barbados

We were there last summer.  Fascinating to see this work in progress!  Read the blog post about the Synagogue here.

The current edition of the Reform Judaism magazine includes a fascinating article about the history and restoration of the Nidhe Israel (the Scattered of Israel) synagogue in Bridgetown, Barbados. The synagogue was established in 1654 by Sephardic Jews fleeing the Inquisition. They were joined in the 1660s by a number of Jewish families fleeing Recife, Brazil, where they were being persecuted by the Dutch. Sold in 1929 by the last surviving member of the original founders, the synagogue has now been restored and is now a Barbados protected site and an active synagogue. It houses a new interactive Jewish museum and a recently excavated mikveh, the oldest known in the Western Hemisphere.

The article chronicles the painstaking restoration project, which began in the 1960s and is still ongoing, since recent excavations of the parking lot unearthed the mikveh. The restorations included the adjacent cemetery, which holds crucial information for the reconstruction of the synagogue’s history, and details the efforts made to trace and recover the various ornaments and sacred objects that once belonged to the congregation:

Paul Altman also struggled to recover the synagogue’s eight brass chandeliers, which he traced to the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, the site of the former estate of Henry Francis DuPont. When he appealed to DuPont’s Jewish chairman and CEO, Irving Shapiro reiterated the museum curator’s rationale for denying the request: “If we were to return all our exhibits, we wouldn’t have a museum.” As a consolation, Shapiro told Altman, “We will let you copy them.” Altman pleaded with him, “If we copy them, why don’t we put the copies in the museum with a sign saying, ‘Originals returned by DuPont to the Nidhe Israel synagogue in Barbados.’ How often do you get an offer like that?” Still, Altman says, “It was a no go. The originals remain in the Winterthur and the facsimiles hang in Nidhe Israel.”

Altman had greater success in retrieving the mahogany representation of the Ten Commandments which had hung over the Torah ark. Lady Stella St. John, wife of the Barbados prime minister, had displayed the tablets above the swimming pool of Ilaro Court, their official residence, and graciously donated them back to the synagogue. As the Torah ark and reader’s desk no longer existed, Altman commissioned “a brilliant woodworker” to refabricate them in Barbados mahogany.

The article can be found at http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1464

Ever since I posted the article I'd found on Nidhe Israel Museum, I knew I wanted to visit.  I've always known that one of the earliest-ever synagogues in the western hemisphere was here but I didn't know where it was in Bridgetown, or how to get there.

Then I found out that a local department store had a shuttle to Bridgetown for shopping and I figured we could take that, shop a little, then find the museum and synagogue.  I am not a big fan of Bridgetown.  The very first year we were here a drunks/doped up man put his arm around our son and started talking to him.  Ever since that situation, I've been uncomfortable there.  The parking is also a nightmare as are the narrow one-way streets.  So, when we've wanted something, we've always shopped at a mall on the coast.

We got on the bus at 8:45 am and headed to Bridgetown.  As is usual with these shuttles, we picked up people at 2 or 3 other hotels in Worthing and Hastings before we landed in front of National Heroes Square.   This square used to be called Trafalgar Square until 1999 and has a statue of Lord Horatio Nelson in it.  This statue was erected 30 years before the one in London.  Nelson had sailed to Barbados in 1805. The new memorial, for which the National Heroes Square was named, commemorates Barbadians killed in the two World Wars.

We headed over to Cave Shepherd and bought a few items.  The, off to the synagogue and museum.  Along the way, I was accosted by someone, presumably not the same person who was interested in our son.  He asked for money for "soup" before he was sent on his way.

The Bridgetown Synagogue was just lovely.  It dates back to 1654.  At that time there was a Jewish population of 300 here.  They had left South America and were allowed to settle here.  The synagogue was destroyed by a hurricane in 1831 and rebuilt in 1837.  Today, the original sand floor has been replaced with tiles but the rest has been kept as it was.

The parking lot is being dug up as part of an archeological project of the University of the West Indies.  There were three men working today and we talked extensively with one of them.  (pictures to be posted later!)  So far, they have uncovered the foundation of a rabbi's house, the foundations of other buildings, pottery and artifacts from the Arawak and Carib Indians.  Many of the artifacts are located now in the museum.

The Nidhe Israel (Scattered of Israel) Museum is located in the middle of the synagogue's cemetery.  Many of the inscriptions from the tombs are along the walls along with translations.  We got a partial, very helpful tour from Celso Brewster, the museum's manager.  He explained a lot of the history of the Jewish people before and after they got to Barbados.  We learned a little about the Jewish Diaspora; exodus from Spain and Portugal during the inquisition in 1492.

The Dutch were a major naval power then and were colonizing Brazil.  Many Jews volunteered to settle in Reclife, Brazil, and they learned about sugar there.  Harvesting, marketing, building sugar mills.  They brought all these skills to Barbados when they fled Reclife in 1591.

By 1948 there were only 70 Jewish people still on Barbados and by 1925 only one.  The Nidhe Israel Synagogue was deconsecrated and sold.  In 1931, Askenazi Jews migrated to Barbados from Poland.  Moses Altman and his son, Paul, were among these and they rescued the synagogue from demolition in 1989.

Restoration is still going on and I'm sure much about Barbados will be learned from the archeological findings.

The museum shows the sugar trail, and how spices were traded, the history of the Jewish people before and after they arrived in Barbados and much more.  Embedded in sand and covered with glass are many of the artifacts dug up outside.  These make up much of the floor and it feels a little weird to walk over them.

There were spice exhibits where we got to smell them and guess what they were.  There was an interactive display that showed how much time you'd have to work for various products.  30 days for a pound of saffron!  Wow!

We went back to our bus meeting place and Tom ran into that same guy from this morning.  He actually apologized for hassling us!

Back home and naptime!