Netherlands Antilles

From JudaismWiki

NETHERLANDS ANTILLES (DUTCH WEST INDIES). Made up of Curaçao and Aruba, two Caribbean islands off the coast of Venezuela. They have a combined population of 175,000. Curaçao is the home of one of the oldest permanent Jewish settlements in the New World. Jews from Holland and Brazil settled here during the 1650’s and prospered in farming and trade. Their synagogue, built in 1732, is the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. The community flourished in the 18th century, some of its members rising to important positions in the administration of the island. Commercial decline in the 19th century led to a sharp drop in the Jewish population. The community in 1998, numbering 300, was composed chiefly of Sephardic Jews, with a small East European minority. It maintains a Jewish Relief Committee and a Hebrew School.

Aruba, an island 75 miles west of Curaçao , is home to about 100 Jews who arrived from Europe in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. An old Jewish cemetery on the island in¬dicates that a lost Jewish community existed in earlier times. The members of the present community are engaged in trade or employed by the Standard Oil Company.

A Jewish museum exists in the old Portuguese synagogue in Willemstad. The present Mikve lsrael-Emanuel Synagogue, with its sand covered floors, is a noted example of Western Sephardi synagogal architecture of the l8th century. The 17th-century Jewish cemetery in Blenheim is one of the oldest in the New World.

United Netherlands Portuguese Congregation Mikve Israel-Emanuel Kerk Strat, P.O.B 322 Willemstad, Caracao, N.A.,Tel. 599 9 611067

Israelitische Gemeente Beth Israel Synagogue, P.O.Box 50 Oranjestad, Aruba Tel. 297 823 272, Fax. 297 836 032