{"id":10867,"date":"2020-10-13T21:43:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T20:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishmuseum.org.uk\/?p=10867"},"modified":"2020-10-13T21:50:39","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T20:50:39","slug":"jews-in-jamaica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishmuseum.org.uk\/2020\/10\/13\/jews-in-jamaica\/","title":{"rendered":"Jews in Jamaica"},"content":{"rendered":"
The history of Jews in Jamaica is surprisingly rich and extensive, although rarely revealed in popular literature. From their arrival in the 16th<\/sup> century, to their flourishing in the 17th<\/sup> century, to their small but notable presence on the island today, the Jewish Jamaican story is a story of diversity, marginalisation, hope, disappointment, and, in the midst of death and persecution, new life.<\/p>\n It is thought that the earliest Jewish presence in Jamaica was from 1530 when Jews travelled there to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Once Britain took power of the island from Spain in 1655, Jewish immigration was welcomed, and by 1720, 18% of the Jamaican population was Jewish. They flourished in Jamaica, becoming gold traders, sugar and vanilla merchants, and sometimes even pirates; Moses Cohen Henriques was a Dutch pirate of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish descent who operated in the Caribbean and eventually became advisor to the famous Captain Henry Morgan. They could hold office before the right was granted for Jews in England. Many joined the Jamaican Assembly, and in 1849 it even met for Yom Kippur. In 1866, 13 out of the 47 delegates were Jewish. Early Jewish life in Jamaica was therefore integrated and diverse. As the economy took a downturn at the turn of the 20th<\/sup> century, however, many Jews left to seek prosperity elsewhere.<\/p>\n The Caribbean is not usually salient in studies of the Second World War, and the connection between Jamaica and the Holocaust is virtually unknown. During the Second World War, Jamaica was a British colony. There, camps were set up to accommodate British people from Gibraltar who were threatened by the advancement of the German army. When people from Gibraltar only took up one third of the camps\u2019 capacity, it was decided that Jewish refugees would take the space. Ultimate, around 1,400 Dutch and Polish Jews were housed there.<\/p>\n