established an agrarian settlement in the midst of the Surinamese tropics. The heart of this community—Jodensavanne; or Jews' Savannah—became an autonomous village with its own Jewish institutions; including a majestic synagogue consecrated in 1685. Situated along the Suriname River; some fifty kilometers south of the capital city of Paramaribo; Jodensavanne was by the mid-eighteenth century surrounded by dozens of Jewish plantations sprawling north- and southward and dominating the stretch of the river. These Sephardi-owned plots; mostly devoted to the cultivation and processing of sugar; carried out primarily by enslaved Africans; collectively formed the largest Jewish agricultural community in the world at the time and the only Jewish settlement in the Americas granted virtual self-rule.Sephardi settlement paved the way for the influx of hundreds of Ashkenazi Jews; who began to emigrate in the late seventeenth century from western and central Europe. Generally banned from Jodensavanne; these newcomers settled in Paramaribo; where they established their own cemeteries and historic synagogue. Meanwhile; slave rebellions; Maroon attacks; the general collapse of Suriname's economy; soil depletion; absentee land ownership; and a ravaging fire all contributed to the demise of the old Savannah settlement beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century.Remnant Stones: Epitaphs presents transcriptions and English translations of nearly 1;700 epitaphs from Jewish cemeteries; carved in Portugese; Hebrew; Spanish; Dutch; Aramaic; and French. A fold-out scaled plan of each of the cemeteries shows stone orientation; locations; and adjacencies. A companion volume; Remnant Stones: The Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname: Essays; traces the history of Surinamese Jewry and presents a social; cultural; and architectural analysis of Suriname's fascinating Jewish community.
#5186700 in Books Northern Illinois University Press 1986-04-01Original language:English 9.00 x 1.00 x 6.00l; #File Name: 0875805337381 pages
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