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Fr iday, March 20, 19 64 — THE D ETROIT JEWISH NEW S -
Purely Commentary
KINGSTON, Jamaica, W. I. — On the eve of
Passover, as we ponder over the serious question
whether Jews can survive as nobly under freedom
as we did during the most trying periods of per-
secutions, we are offered a partial answer in this
remote area in the Western Hemisphere.
Descendants of Marranos who were here 350
years ago, (Jamaica was discovered by Columbus
on May 3, 1494) who are part of this interesting
community that had gained its independence only
20 months ago — in August of 1962 — are proudly
upholding their Jewish faith and maintain that
they will continue to do so unto another 350 years
or more.
Their claims pose many interesting questions,
steeped in numerous problems that can be evalu-
ated only through a thorough study of the history of
Jamaican Jewry.
At the turn of the century, in the Jewish Ency-
clopedia that was published by Funk and Wagnalls
in 1904, Max J. Kohler, the Detroit-born Jewish
scholar (son of Dr. Kaufmann Kohler who was
among the first rabbis of Detroit's Temple Beth
El), wrote in an article on Jamaica: "Largest island
in the British West Indes. It has a total population
of 644,841 (1901), of whom about 2,400 are Jews."
Today, if we are to accept the estimate of
Rabbi Henry Phillips Silverman, there are not more
than a thousand Jews there — nearly all of them
residing in Kingston, a handful in nearby St. An-
drew, some in Spanish Town, perhaps a family or
two in Montego Bay, none as far as is known in
the popular resort area of Ocho Rios.
Twenty years ago, this community still had a
shohet and the Jews who desired kosher-slaughtered
chickens could have them. Those who insisted on
kashrut had meat shipped to them from Florida.
Today there is not a semblance of kashrut, the
shohet is a memory of the past, very few if any
have a desire for food prepared according to the
Jewish dietary laws.
Yet, Jamaican Jews insist that having survived
the period of danger when Jamaica was under
Spanish rule, having lived as an entity for so many
years, they will continue to function as Jews.
Granville de Leon, who traces his Jewish an-
cestory to the Marranos who came here 350 years
ago, and Felix Shalom, a member of one of the
very few non-native families here, expressed their
confidence in this fashion: "We have survived
350 years by our determined will to live as Jews;
we shall survive another 350 years — and more.
There is no anti-Semitism here. Hatred of the Jew
is totally unknown in Jamaica. We live in freedom
and we'll survive in freedom."
During this Commentator's brief visit here,
he was the guest of Messrs. de Leon and Shalom at
a luncheon of the Rotary Club, at which Lady Baden-
Powell spoke on Scouting. When the meal was
served they both spoke up at once: "We do not
eat ham," and a substitute was served to the three
of us at a table which included colored, white and
Chinese diners. This may be the extent of observ-
ance insofar as food is concerned: rejection of
pork products. Yet there were other aspects of
devotion expressed by Shalom
whose family hailed from England::
and Palestine, and de Leon. They •
spoke with pride about the
they gave in rescuing Jews who
fled from Cuba. They affirmed an
interest in Israel. They are com-
pletely linked with their syna-
gogue.
Rabbi Silverman, who came
to Jamaica 29 years ago and who
now plans retirement upon the
conclusion of 30 years of service Rabbi Silverman
here, had much more to say about Jewish survival
in Jamaica.
Emphasizing that he prefers to be "a preacher
who ministers rather than a minister who preaches"
— he said it with a hidden rebuke to rabbis who
place emphasis primarily on their sermons — he,
too, said that 350 years of survival point to 350
years more of Jewish existence in a community
that has overwhelmingly intermarried but in which,
as he said, "we hold our own."
Rabbi Silverman is an interesting character.
Before coming to Jamaica, after being ordained
in Manchester, England, in 1916, he held a chap-
laincy in the British army and then had a rabbinic
career in the United States for 121/2 years. He was
chaplain of the New York State Reformatory,
having been reappointed by Governors Alfred Smith,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert H. Lehman, and
rabbi in Elmira, N.Y., and came to Jamaica in
1935. Since coming here, he has received numerous
government honors and has been named one of the
island's 25 justices of the peace. He was the first
rabbi to deliver a sermon in the Scottish church
here, and the Roman Catholic Bishop was the first
Catholic churchman to speak in a synagogue.
United Congregation of Israelites in which
Rabbi Silverman ministers now, is the only syna-
gogue in Jamaica. There were other synagogues
here 40 years ago, and it was in 1921 that this
congregation — which is Sephardic in origin and
practice, joined with the Ashkenazic after making
the concession that the Ashkenazic trop
the
cantillation for Torah reading — should be used
during Scriptural readings. It was decided upon,
the earlier congregations having been destroyed.
—
Jamaican Jewry Poses Interesting
Test of Survival Under Freedom
The services, as Rabbi Silverman explains, are
semi-Reform. The major services are on Friday
nights. There are Saturday services, and they are
followed by children's instructions. There are head-
coverings during services with yarmulkas, and the
taleitim are worn by the men. There are Bar and
Bat Mitzvot.
A Jewish Institute recently was appended to
the synagogue to be used as a meeting place and
school and the foundation was laid by two of the
oldest residents, Mrs. Ethel Mordecai, 96, and Mrs.
Louis Ashenheim, 94.
Rabbi Silverman explained that children attend
all services, that they are taught Bible, history and
Hebrew, and that world events are reviewed for
adult groups. But it is evident that contacts with the
outside world are limited, that the Jews of Jamaica
have no access to Jewish newspapers, that their
knowledge of world affairs is limited.
Yet, an effort is made to retain a link with
Israel, and once a year an emissary comes to appeal
for Israeli causes. The maximum amount that is
contributed towards Israeli causes is approximately
1,500 pounds, — $4,500 — but individuals like
Shalom and de Leon, having visited Israel, have
established memorials at the Weizmann Institute
and are giving other gifts to the Jewish State.
United Congregation of Israelites serves as
the central agency for all Jewish causes. It is
through this congregation that whatever links exist
with Jews elsewhere are retained, and it is through
this synagogue that Jamaican Jewry is an affiliate
of the World Jewish Congress whose spokesman
here is a most distinguished Jamaican leader, Aaron
Matalon.
Rabbi Silverman spoke with pride of the strong
reaction that was evidenced against Nazism during
the Hitler persecutions, when the Anglican bishop
occupied his pulpit in 1938 and condemned the
outrages. While there are no Zionist activities here,
he commends the work of the only functioning
Zionist group, WIZO, the counterpart of Hadassah.
The Jewish National Fund Blue and White Box and
its tree-planting efforts are unknown here, and the
Keren Hayesod annual effort through an Israeli
emmisary is the one response, besides WIZO's, to
Israel.
Yet, Rabbi Silverman speaks with pride of his
work — of the 220 who come to the community
Passover Seder — with a number of individuals
having their own Sedorim; of the provisions that
come here for Passover, matzoh being ordered from
New York.
The energetic rabbi quoted from liturgy: "al
tikro bonayikh elo bonoyikh"--"read it not as thy
children but rather as thy builders" — and one
wonders, when in every family there is a mixed
marriage, whether there is consolation in emphasis
on the existence of the builders. But Rabbi Silver-
man tells you: he insists on milah for conversion;
he demands nine months' instruction by converts;
he tells you Jews vanish from the midst of his
community only when - they marry Catholics.
What happens when there are intermarriages
without conversions? Rabbi Silverman says that
when the parents say they'll raise the children as
Jews he blesses the infants and they are accepted
into the fold as Jews. While one has a right to be
skeptical over the future, the Jamaicans are opti-
mistic.
Felix Shalom put it this way: "Twenty years
ago I was skeptical; today I am confident we can
and will survive." And Glanville de Leon nodded his
head in consent. Their good relationships with
their neighbors, the total absence of anti-Semitism,
the acceptance of Jews as equals, on a par of colored-
white merging into the single slogan: we are all
Jamaicans, is the source of confidence.
On the question of the observance of the
Sabbath, Felix Shalom says there is a decline to be
likened to that everywhere else. Here, too, he said,
there was Sabbath observance. A number of years
ago, the Fred L. Meyers distilleries, makers of
Meyers Rum, were closed on the Sabbath, and
Meyers willed it that after his death the distillery
was to observe the Sabbath. It has since been
sold to the Bronfmans and that last testament is
a mere memory.
A week before this Commentator visited this
community, Maurice Perlzweig was here to assure
Jamaican solidity with the World Jewish Congress.
It exists and there is a measure of faith that retains
a link with Jewry. Time will tell what the reactions
of the children who were "blessed" into the Jewish
faith by Rabbi Silverman will be towards their
kinsmen and the Jewish faith.
Meanwhile, the United Congregation of Israel-
ites is the symbol of Judaism here. It retains the
Hebrew name Shaare Shalom — Gates of Peace.
The two old synagogues, the Ashkenazic (followers
of the Germanic ritual) and Sephardic (Spanish-
Portugese) were destroyed in the 1882 Great Fire.
There was an amalgamation into Shaare Shalom in
1885 and the synagogue was rebuilt after the 1907
earthquake.
The services that have been rendered by Jamai-
can Jewry were centered in this congregation, and
it was thanks to one of its leaders, Granville de
Leon, that a great service was performed during the
height of the Cuban crisis.
There were direct flights of some Cuban Jews
—whose original number of 10,000 has now been
reduced to 2,500 — into the United States. When
By Philip
Slomovitz
those earlier rescue efforts ceased in 1962, it be-
came necessary for those seeking haven elsewhere
to go to Jamaica. At first there were individual
operations in which all faiths shared responsibility.
But when it turned into a mass movement Jamaican
Jews found is necessary of call upon United Hias
Service to assist them.
Glanville de Leon was the guiding genius of
the entire undertaking. Until Hias stepped in, the
Jews of Jamaica financed the flights and the
eventual transfer of the newcomers. When it be-
came a mass movement, Hias provided directing
manpower and the funds for transporting the es-
capees from Cuba.
James P. Rice, assisted by Anne Petlock, were
in Cuba to supervise what turned out to be a large
movement of refugees from Castro's isle.
There is something very historic about the
effort. There was a totally unselfish motivation.
Non-Jews were helped, with
Jewish assistance, in their
escape, just as Jews had been
aided by Catholics and prot-
estants when there was a
need for cooperative effort.
James Rice has nothing but
commendation for the cour-
age with which Jamaican
Jews, under de Leon's lead-
ership, assisted in bringing
Cuban Jews to Kingston, in
housing them until they
could be sent on to their
permanent homes. Most of
the Cuban Jews who came
to Jamaica settled in the
James Rice
United States—a number of
them coming to Detroit. Some went to Latin Amer-
ican countries. Only one family went to Israel. The
refusal by any of the survivors to go to Israel poses
another question of indifference that also exists
among many of the Algerian Jews who have found
haven in France. This is a subject for seperate
analysis.
Jamaican experiences are incomplete without
indicating efforts at some creativity. There have
been some attempts at recording the community's
history. Such a chronicle was compiled by Moss
Andrary, but copies of it are not available.
United Congregation of Israelites has issued an
all-English — there is no Hebrew in it whatever
— compilation of Prayers, Meditations and Order
of Service, a 106-page book for all occasions.
Jamaican Jews have gained honors in their
community, and the major one has been attained by
a member of one of the oldest families—Sir Neville
Ashenheim, who was knighted by the Queen of
England last year.
The Ashenheims are among the oldest Jewish
families in Jamaica. When the island gained its
independence from England and
became an autonomous republic,
Sir Neville Ashenheim was named
its ambassador to the United
States.
Sir Neville, who was born here
in 1900, headed the Jewish com-
munity as its president, following
the footsteps of his father and
grandfather. He also was chairman
of the German Refugee Fund.
Jews have served in other
Sir Neville capacities in Jamaica, but the high-
est rank in government is held by Sir Neville.
He is presently _conducting a strong campaign in
Washington to encourage American tourism in
Jamaica.
Max J. Kohler's Illuminating Account
of Jamaican Jewry
The best account thus far given of the back-
ground of Jamaican Jewry was written by the late
Max J. Kohler in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1904).
For a full understanding, on the island which now
has a population of 1,600,000,the facts he had
gathered should be known and the text of that
article therefore is quoted here, as follows:
JAMAICA: Largest island in the British West. Indies.
It has a total population of 644,841 (1901), of whom
about 2,400 are Jews. When England conquered the island
in 1655, a considerable number of Jewish inhabitants was
found there, known as "Portugals," under which name
the Sephardic Jews concealed their true faith from
Spanish persecution. Jews settled in Jamaica during the
century preceding Cromwell's conquest. The proprietary
rights of the family of Columbus to Jamaica were
recognized in 1508 and 1538, and passed to the female
Braganza line in 1576. The friendship which subsisted be-
tween Columbus and the Jews continued with his
descendants, and as their proprietary rights excluded
the Inquisition and prevented the inclusion of Jamaica in
the bishopric of Cuba, unavowed Jews were enabled
to live in Jamaica in comparative safety, even during
the Spanish period. Clarendon's "State Papers" refer,
under date of 1623, to sonic of these Portuguese as yearn.
ing to throw off the Spanish yoke.
The principal pilot, Captain Campoe Sabbatha, whom
Penn and Venables relied upon in their attack upon
Jamaica seems to have been a Jew, and there is strong
reason for believing that Cromwell considered Jews
settled and to be settled in and about Jamaica as import-
ant factors in the establishment of his ambitious British
colonial policy. Simon de caceres, one of Cromwell's
principal secret-intelligencers, furnished him with re-
ports on conditions in Jamaica immediately after its
conquest. The British, in their method of dealing with the
conquered residents, were careful to distinguish between
Portuguese Jews and the Spanish inhabitants, with the
result that Jews at once began to establish and develop
the commercial prosperity of the island. The Dutch
capitulation of Brazil augmented the Jewish settlement
(Continued on Page 40)