(SURINAM). Sepher Soph Adam

A guide for members of the Burial Society of Surinam. Brought to publication by Jacob P. de Meza, resident of Paramaribo. The Jewish Community of Surinam in the Dutch West Indies, represents the oldest Jewish settlement in the Western Hemisphere. The historic Sephardic Congregation was situated some ten miles from Paramaribo in a settlement up the river known as the “Savannah of the Jews” (Joden Savanne). The Jews possessed high socio-economic status and enjoyed a remarkable degree of autonomy. The Community in Surinam felt itself closely bound to both Amsterdam (the mother of the earliest synagogues in the Americas) and New York’s Shearith Israel. This was due to both tradition and family ties, as well as the bonds of commerce. In 1832 the synagogue at Joden Savanne was destroyed by fire, soon after, civil revolt against the slave-trade, as well as the inroads of the climate, led to the abandonment of the Jewish colony of which nothing but the jungle-ruin now remains. See M.A. Cohen, Sephardim in the Americas, American Jewish Archives vol. XLIV (1992) pp.142-3