Schomburgk on the Jews of Barbados

"According to the can appears that tlie earliest settlement of the Jews in this island dates from about 1628 A tomb is at present standing in one of the burial grounds bearing date 1658 Although they were occasionally subjected to persecution and oppression the policy they exhibited in keeping on good terms with the powers that were caused their civil rights to be extended in 1680 and their testimony which had been long rejected in the courts of law was from that time admitted in all civil suits though not in other cases upon in oath taken upon the five books of Moses according to the tenets of their religion The Colonial Act of 1 William IV cap 10 which passed the Legislature on the 25th of March 1831 removed any restraint or disabilities under which persons professing the Hebrew religion then Ubourrd and subjected them like other white persons to fines and penalties for the non performance of duties At one period the congregation consisted of a very large number but fmm deaths and many of the European families returning to England the number has been reduced The circumstance of their having so many"

"handsomest and most substantial buildings of its kind in the West Indies Its size is fifty feet long by forty feet wide and it occupies an area of 2000 square feet its cost amounted to 14,000 dollars about 2,920 which was met by the funds of the community without extraneous assistance from any quarter1 The name of the congregation is Kaal Kadosh Nidhe Israel or the holy scattered congregation of Israel The funds at present do not allow the payment of a salary to a reader and the service is therefore performed by three members alternately The congregation consists of a warden a killer and examiner of meats an officer who has the care of the synagogue and a total number of seventy individuals half of whom are natives of the island The expenditure is met by seat rents and voluntary contributions There is a public Sabbath school entitled Shangere Limud or the Gate of Learning which between the hours of ten and one o clock is attended by five females and ten males"

The following more detailed description of the synagogue is from the Barbados Glohe of April 1st 1833 It is thirty seven feet high and receives considerable strength from the rounding of the angles which are capped with large antique censers uniting a balustratcd parapet all round the roof being so little elevated as not to In perceived The windows are lancet shaped and tastefully harmonize with the proportions of the building a double flight of stone steps on the north side covered with a Gothic hood leads to the gallery within the whole of the exterior is lightly tinged of stone colour and scored out in blocks and the appearance altogether is classical and chaste those walls which had hitherto rendered the passage to the old synagogue so dull and sombre being now lowered so as to afford one general view of the whole at the entrance of the avenue The court yard around this edifice is well drained and neatly paved and a handsome marble fountain occupies a niche within the inner court railed otf by an iron trellis The interior corresponds with the outer appearance a light and tasteful gallery supported by neat Doric columns The reader's desk in the body of the edifice is sufficiently elevated give n conspicuous view of the persons officiating From the ceiling is suspended each comer in front of the gallery a single brass chandelier of eight lights and in centre one of a similar kind containing twenty four The area of the building paved in alternate squares of black and white marble and the ceiling painted in produces a most pleasing effect as well from the artist like manner in which it executed as from the chasteness of its design It is computed to hold about three persons"

Regulations of the Cemetery

Old ground belonging to the Portuguese Jews.

Description of the tombs.

Funeral ceremonies.

The old burying-ground belonging to the Portuguese Jews was first used for that purpose about the year 1657 in London, and at an earlier date in Barbados. In this ground the dead are interred in rows, a certain space being allowed for each grave. The spot contiguous to that last occupied, is used for the next person who dies, whether rich or poor; except in a few instances, where a burial-place purchased for a considerable sum has been reserved near the grave of some near relation. Many graves do not have tombstones. This is particularly the case in Barbadoes, due to the high cost of bringing a stone across from England. The earliest burials in Barbadoes do not , with a few notable exceptions, have Tombstones, and that oldest part of the graveyard has much open ground.

The same grave is never opened a second time, it being reckoned a most impious and sacrilegious act to disturb the ashes of the deceased. The tombs are some of free stone, others of marble.

The bye-laws of the synagogue direct that those of adults shall be six feet and a half long, three wide, and one foot and a half high, including the ledger-stone.
In Barbadoes these rules apply, however some tombs have variable heights, and have carved stone tombs.

The tombs of children are of the same height, but only four feet long, and two and a half broad . Some of the tombs are ornamented with emblematical devices , and basso relievos, representing portions of scripture history .

The inscriptions are principally in Hebrew and Portuguese, some are in English.

The funeral ceremonies used by the Portuguese Jews are as follows: When the body of the deceased has been washed and dressed, which, except for children, is done by persons of the same sex, it is put into the coffin, which is generally plain deal, or covered with black. It is then conveyed to a brick building adjoining to the cemetery, called a Hall, where those who attend the funeral, if the deceased is a male of more than 13 years of age, go seven times round the corpse, repeating a prayer . It is then carried to the grave; and being there deposited, the nearest relation of the deceased first throws in earth, the other attendants assist in filling up the grave, while the 91st psalm is repeated in Hebrew.

Persons who have been notoriously wicked are interred in a place apart from the congregation, without any funeral ceremonies.

There is a fund (arising from legacies which are recorded on boards in the hall) for assisting the sick poor at their own houses, and burying their dead; a certain sum to maintain the family during the mourning week , during which, the precepts of their religion do not permit the Jews to work.



Isaac Abraham Hisquiau Gabay Isidro, Rabbi of the congregation at Barbadoes, d. 1755, is buried in London, not in Barbadoes.

A 1661 petition against the Jewes

THOMAS VIOLET
Petition Against the Jewes, Presented to the Kings Majestie and
the Parliament
London, 1661



With Cromwell dead and the English monarchy
restored in 1660, many changes made under the
Commonwealth were reversed. Violet, London
goldsmith, sometime Alderman of the Corporation of London, and belligerent
pamphleteer with nativist and hard currency bees in
his bonnet, was determined that Cromwell’s very
recent readmission of the Jews should be high on the
“to undo” list. For the new regime’s benefit, he refers
back to Manasseh’s meetings in London in 1655-6:
“Upon several days hearing, Cromwel and his Councel
did give a Toleration and Dispensation to a great
number of Jewes to come and live here in London,
and to this day they do keep publick Worship in the
City of London, to the great dishonour of Christianity,
and publick scandal of the true Protestant Religion,
and to the great damage of the Kingdome, especially
our Merchants, whose Trade they engross, and eat the
childrens bread: and in the Barbadoes they do so
swarm, that had not care bin taken to banish them, in
twenty years they would eat out the English: but by
the care of this blessed Parliament they are within a
year to be banished thence.”

Violet’s petition backfired. The King let it be known that he was more
interested in measures to protect the Jews than expel
them. The threatened Barbados community was
reprieved, and, when New York soon became an
English possession, these domestic and colonial
precedents were applied there as well

Jews from London

There were Jews living in London as 'Hidden Jews', and a number of these Jews emigrated to Barbados, where the Council was more enlightened. The synagogue in Barbados was already built in 1654, London had to wait until 1657. Some names of London Jews whom we know moved to Barbadoes are:

Bernard de Caceres (Casseres) [fl.1661] settled in Barbadoes
Henrique de Caceres (Casseres) [fl.1661] settled in Barbadoes
Jacob Fraso [fl.1661] settled in Barbadoes
David Raphael de Mercado [d.1685] endenizened, 1661

1661 - the de Piza Family expelled

Around 1661, some Jews of Barbados, Isaac Israel de Pisa, Aaron Israel de Pisa, and their brother Abraham Israel de Pisa, who lived in Jamaica, said that they had discovered gold mines...their punishment was that they were expelled from Barbados.

In the Cemetery in Barbados, lies a tombstone to SY DE PIZA, who died on 7 ADAR 5444
i.e in 1683, who one presumes was related, but who was not expelled from the Island.

The inscription reads in full:

SA
DO BEMAVEN
TVRADO SY
DE PIZA FALE
CEV EM 7 ADAR
~5444~

1833 - Literary reference of Bridgetown's Jew Street

 About this book Read this bookFOUR YEARS RESIDENCE IN THE WEST INDIES By SON OF A MILITARY OFFICER: "health or appetite Reader thou hast no idea of the pigs verily and of a truth these animals do thrive on the Barbadian soil and revel in the Barbadian canetops so the pork continues good and wholesome in spite of Jew Street and the Jews If"

October 1846 Election of Parnaz Presidente

Barbados. E. A. Moses, Esq., has been elected Parnass for the current year, and Messrs. Mozley Elkin and Daniel Lobo have ten­dered their services for Hatanim, which have been cheerfully accepted.