In 1682 the above-named Samuel Nassi, who has been described as capitein and as the richest planter in Surinam, gave to the Jews an island on the river Surinam, about seventy miles from the sea, where most of them settled and which was henceforth known as “de Jooden Savane” (Savannah of the Jews, the name originally meaning: a treeless region) and was the principal seat of the Jewish community of Surinam. It was there that the Congregation Berakah-we-Shalom (Blessing and Peace) built its splendid Synagogue in 1685. One hundred years later the centennial of the dedication of that Synagogue was appropriately celebrated on Wednesday, Heshwan 8, 5546 (October 12, 1785), of which a record was printed in Amsterdam the following year, partly in Hebrew and partly in Dutch. (See Roest, Catalog ... der Rosenthalschen Bibliothek I, p. 738.)
When a French squadron attacked Surinam in 1689, the Jews under the leadership of Samuel Nassi did good service in beating them off. Similar valuable service was rendered in 1712, this time under Capitein Isaac Pinto, against another French attack under Cassard. The unfriendliness of the French was demonstrated again in that year, when they took the Jewish Savannah and desecrated the Synagogue by slaughtering a pig on the “Teibah” or Ammud. The Jews, on the other hand, did not always get the protection to which they were entitled. When the slaves on the plantation of M. Machado revolted and killed their master in 1690, Governor Van Scherpenhuitzen refused to assist the Jews. At a later period (in 1718), when there was continual trouble with bush negroes, who destroyed the plantation of David Nassi, they were chastised by Jews under the leadership of Capitein Jacob d’Avilar. David Nassi (1672–1743) himself served under him with distinction, and his praises were sung by the Judeo-Spanish poetess Benvenide Belmonte. We also find traces of legal restrictions in such instances as the decree of 1703, by which all Jewish marriages contracted in Surinam up to that year are confirmed, but henceforth they must be made in conformity with the Dutch marriage law of 1580. Sunday-closing laws were also brought into force against them, but they were later repealed.
A list of the names of about sixty-five plantations belonging to Jews at that period and the names of the owners has been preserved. (“Publications,” IX, p. 129 ff.) Some of the plantations bear Hebrew names like Carmel, Hebron, Succoth and Beer-Sheba. The number of Jews in Surinam was then (about 1694) 570, consisting of ninety-two Dutch or Portuguese families, about fifty unmarried persons and ten or twelve German families. They possessed about nine thousand slaves.
Difficulties between the earlier settlers and the Germans, who arrived later, soon arose, and in 1734 the latter requested permission to form a separate community, which was granted. They were, however, prohibited to own any possession on the Jewish Savannah, nor were they allowed to have their own jurisdiction. The act of the separation of the “Hoogduytsche” (High-German) Jews, who founded the congregation Neweh Shalom, is dated January 5, 1735. It is signed by A. Henry de Scheusses (Governor) and Samuel Uz. Davilar, Ishac Carrilho, Abraham Pinto Junior, Jehoshuah C. Nassi, for the Portuguese; Solomon Joseph Levie, I. Meyer Wolff, Gerrit Jacobs, Jakob Arons Polak for the German Jews. The Portuguese thereupon built a new Synagogue, “Zedek we-Shalom,” which was dedicated in 1737. But the Germans also stuck to the Portuguese Minhag or prayer-book, and we have it on the authority of Rabbi Roos of Paramaribo (1905) that there never existed a Synagogue with the Minhag Ashkenaz in Surinam.
Bloody conflicts with negroes continued for about forty years longer, and many valiant deeds of Jewish military leaders and their followers embellish the records of that period. David Nassi was killed in battle at the age of 71 (in 1743), after being successful in more than thirty skirmishes, and was succeeded as capitein by Isaac Carvalho. In 1749 another Jewish capitein, Naär, won a victory against the Auka negroes; while in 1750 young Isaac Nassi and three hundred of his men were killed by an overwhelming force of bush negroes. At last, in 1774, forts were erected and a military line drawn from the Savannah of the Jews along the river Commoimber to the sea; and we hear no more of negro wars.
The legal status of the Jews was undergoing some changes, as is almost unavoidable so long as there is not the same law for Jew and Gentile alike. Some measures could be considered as improvements, like the law of 1749, which granted the Jews of Surinam their own judiciary in matters affecting less than 600 gulden. On the other hand we hear of an unsuccessful attempt in 1768 to institute a Ghetto in Paramaribo, and in 1775 Jews were forbidden to visit a certain amateur theatre of that town. At that time the two communities also began to make use of the right which was bestowed on them by the English Charter of Privilege (and later confirmed by the Dutch authorities), of “banishing troublesome people and persons of bad demeanour.” The “Deputies of the Jewish Nation” had only to declare to the Governor the reasons why they wished to have these persons banished, and they were expelled. The above named Rabbi J. S. Roos has noted five cases of such banishments:
Solomon Montel was banished in 1761 on the request of the Portuguese deputies, because he refused to restitute rents or usury “which is contrary to the Mosaic law.” In 1772 Noah Isaaks was banished on the request of the German deputies, and in the following year Abraham Isaac Moses Michael Fernandes Henriques, alias Escarabajos, was, on the request of the Portuguese deputies, made to quit the place. Elias Levin was banished in 1781 by the Germans and Abraham de Mesquita, the last of those exiled, belonged to the Portuguese part of the community.
The German Jews kept on increasing in numbers, and in 1780 their Synagogue in Paramaribo was enlarged and two burial grounds were procured. In 1784 the Jewish theatre of that city, probably the first in modern history, was enlarged and embellished. The Savannah, of which only ruins remain now, was on its decline, and had only about forty houses in 1792; while the community in Paramaribo was growing and two Jewish play houses are mentioned in that year. The Portuguese were still the majority, numbering 834, but the Germans were gaining fast, and from the ten families at the end of the seventeenth century they rose now to the number of 477. There were also about 100 Jewish mulattoes in Paramaribo in that time.
The Jews of Surinam in that period also commenced to display considerable literary activity. J. C. Nassi and others wrote the Essai historique sur la Colonie de Surinam avec l’histoire de la nation juive y etablie (Paramaribo, 1788), which is one of the principal sources of the history of the Jews of Surinam. A highly interesting correspondence between representative Jews of that community and Christian Wilhelm v. Dohm (1751–1820) relating to the latter’s work favoring the Jews, is printed at the end of that Essay. (Reproduced in “Publications,” XIII, pp. 133–35). Various other works of historical, religious and poetical nature were written and published there in the following half century.
The history of the community of Paramaribo in the nineteenth century is uneventful. In 1836, when the German congregation, which now numbered 719 souls, already exceeded the Portuguese portion, which had declined to 684, a new “Hoogduitsche of Nederlandsche” Synagogue was erected. In 1838 Rabbi B. C. Carrilon became the spiritual head of the Dutch-Portuguese congregation. Twenty years later M. J. Lewenstein (1829–64) was inaugurated as the Chief Rabbi of the congregation of Paramaribo and held the position for six years, until his death. In 1900 the city contained about 1,500 Jews, who occupied an honorable position and controlled the principal property of the colony. Even modern Antisemitism has not failed to invade this distant Jewish settlement, the oldest in the New World.
At present (1911) there are about 4,000 Jews in Surinam, mostly in Paramaribo, which has now about 50,000 inhabitants. The two communities, both strongly orthodox, are still in existence, and each