Sephardi Jews of Barbados

Dutch merchants including some Sephardi Jews likely began arriving in Barbados in 1627. They assisted the first English settlers with securing food supplies and with shipping the tobacco, cotton, indigo, etc., they produced to England. Following the Portuguese recapture of Pernambuco from the Dutch in 1654, Sephardi Jews were forced to leave what was then Brazil’s sugar-producing centre.Some returned to Holland; others moved to New Amsterdam (later, New York); and a number came to Barbados where their knowledge of sugar cultivation and processing was welcomed by the island’s early planters. This book describes the community the Sephardim built in Barbados over the following three hundred years despite numerous prohibitions, restrictions, and overt anti-Semitism. It highlights some of their personalities and the challenging issues they faced while trying to maintain observant Jewish lives.