Jamaica

My Impressions

“Where are the other English speakers?”

I turned around to see an interesting pair of women, one young and one older. Margaret Henriques Adam and Norma Haddad traveled fifteen hours from Kingston the night before and somehow made the early morning session of the conference.

Surrounded by Spanish-speakers, they were interested in finding other English speakers as soon as possible. I introduced myself.

After a brief lunchtime discussion, I discovered that both Margareth and Norma were born and raised in Jamaica, their parents were born in Jamaica, their grandparents were born in Jamaica.

With light skin and lilting Caribbean accents, they told me what they knew about their own family histories. Margaret’s maiden name, Henriques, is an important one. Sources trace the surname back to pre-Inquisition Andalusia and Portugal. Margareth is pretty confident her family lived in Southern Spain before arriving in Jamaica after their expulsion by the Catholic monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel.

Norma’s family moved to England when times in Jamaica got tough, leading some of her sisters to settle in Britain permanently. She along with a few others moved back to Jamaica. Shortly thereafter she met her husband. Mr. Haddad was a non-practicing Christian Arab and fifteen years her senior.

Both Margaret and Norma’s husbands were non-Jews who wholeheartedly supported the woman as they raised their children as Jews. Both came/come to synagogue when asked and even encourage their children when their wives are not around.

Margaret recalled coming home one evening and hearing her husband prepare their two sons for bed.

“Let’s say the Shm’a.”

Together they recited the short prayer that serves as a daily reminder to Jews of their monotheistic dedication. Margareth’s smile seemed to indicate her continued delight with her husband’s sweet, unsolicited encouragement.

Background on the Jamaican Community (paraphrased from the UJCL website)

When the English captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655 they found people who may have been marranos but most certainly were conversos. No Jews were allowed in the Spanish New World, but Jamaica, belonging to the Colón family turned a blind-eye when it came to the island’s population of Conversos. There is evidence that practicing and non-practicing Jews were involved in sugar cane production dating back as far as 1512.

From as early as 1655 British colonizers did nothing to expel or limit the Jews from visiting and settling on the island. As a result the Jewish population flourished and a small synagogue was established in the infamous town of Port Royal before the end of the 17th century. After the devastating earthquake of 1692 the Jews purchased a plot in the old Spanish capital and the then Jamaican capital of Spanish Town to establish a new house of worship. The synagogue Neveh Shalom was contructed by the beginning of the 18th century.

The Spanish Town community expanded when congregation Kahal Kadosh Mikveh Israel built their own synagogue in 1796. These congregations flourished for over 100 years until the capital of the island was moved to Kingston in 1872. Congregations of Sephardim and Ashkenazim prospered in Kingston beginning in from 1750.

The congregations finally came together finally in 1921 as the United Congregation of Israelites. Today the congregation still maintains the Synagogue, one of the few in the world with sand on its floor, designed and built in the traditional Sephardic style by the Jamaican Jew, Rudolph Daniel Cohen Henriques and his brothers. The congregation sponsored and is still responsible for the Hillel Academy, a Kingston private preparatory and secondary school open to students of all religions.