G.W.C. Voorduin, artist. J.E. Van Heemskerck Van Beest, lithographer. Post Gelderland en Joden Savannah (Rivier Zijde). [“Post Netherlands and Jews’ Savannah; Riverside View.”]

The Dutch colony of Surinam, or as it is known today, Dutch Guiana, is a territory bounded on the North by the Atlantic Ocean, on the South by Brazil, and on the East and West by French Guiana and Guiana, respectively. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a thriving Jewish community developed there, with close cultural ties to the motherland of Holland. Jews owned vast sugar plantations, and possessed a full-fledged religious infrastructure. Joden Savanne was, if one would have it, a Jew Town, located about 10 miles from Paramaribo, the largest city in Surinam. The tranquility of colonial life is vividly portrayed in this handsome Dutch lithograph. See Gans, Memorbook (1977), p.267; JE, Vol. XII, pp. 508-9; EJ, Vol. XV, cols. 529-531