Kingston – Abraham Cohen Henriques, a Jewish merchant from Amsterdam, arrived in Jamaica in 1670 on a mission to find the hidden treasure of Christopher Columbus.
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Acting on a tip handed down to him by a forcibly converted Jew, he scoured the thick vegetation of the island’s interior searching for the great explorer’s secret stash.
By most accounts Henriques turned up empty handed, but he liked the place Columbus dubbed the “fairest isle” so much that he kept coming back.
More than three centuries later, the Henriqueses are still here.
Ainsley Henriques, the leader of Jamaica’s tiny Jewish community and a distant relative of Abraham the treasure seeker, is now on his own mission here: Instead of looking for a treasure, he is its guardian.
For the past 30 years Henriques, who is in his 70s, has worked tirelessly to preserve the rich history and traditions of Jamaica’s unique Jewish community.
“I restructured the congregation, established an office, employed staff and persuaded the community to open a museum,” Henriques tells JTA. “We have hundreds of school children coming in to the synagogue every week to learn about the community.”
Fascinating article.
A while back I acquired a book that lists the Jews buried there and Jewish cemetaries in Jamaica – some as early as the 15th century!
I have seen the synagogue in Kingston, although I did not attend a service there. I don’t think it is Orthodox.
Did I miss something? the nation of Islam? Why would any respectable Jew want to meet them?
Why do we live in Brooklyn? Let’s get a few hundred Yidden to move down to Jamaica. Cheap labor we can use to start businesses, low real estate prices we can use to build houses, great weather…paradise!
How come yedah Montag und Donarshtig a Jewish community, one nobody ever even knew existed, pops up in some far flung country?
…that the Lubavitcher Rebbe said there were tzadikim buried in Jamaica.