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
[...] built in 1833 in the Sephardic style. There are additional sites in Barbados [see our post on the Restoration of the Old Synagogue in Barbados], Jamaica, Surinam, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, and [...]
By: Jewish heritage sites in the Caribbean « Repeating Islands on May 29, 2009
at 12:08 am
I found your websie very interesting. My husband and I plan on visiting Barbados for just one day: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 and we would love to come visit the Synagogue. We will be on the Carnival Victory and will make an attempt to come visit the Synagogue which you most generously preserved.
Gail Lorber
By: Gail Lorber on June 21, 2009
at 11:29 pm
[...] Paul Altman, who was responsible for the restoration of the property, explained that his parents, grandparents, and other family members were buried in the graveyard, and spoke about the hitorical importance of the synagogue and museum: “The story that is told in the museum is the important story of what we have here; the story and the connection between the Jewish community and Barbados; the story of sugar, the story of trade and the fact that if we hadn’t captured that story and put it there for everyone to see, it would only be a story.” [For more on the restoration, see previous post Restoration of the Old Synagogue in Barbados.] [...]
By: Barbados National Trust Highlights the Jewish Synagogue and Nidhe Israel Museum « Repeating Islands on February 6, 2012
at 10:10 pm