The Mikvé Israel-Emanuel Synagogue ( he, בית הכנסת מקווה ישראל-עמנואל; en, The Hope of Israel-Emanuel Synagogue), in

Willemstad, Curaçao Willemstad ( , ; ; en, William Town, italic=yes) is the capital city of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was the capital of the Netherlands Antilles prior ...

, is the oldest surviving synagogue in the Americas. It is commonly known as the ''Snoa'' (short for esnoga, an old Portuguese and Judaeo-Spanish word for synagogue) and is a major tourist attraction in Curaçao, with one notable group of visitors including

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husban ...

of the Netherlands and her family, in 1992. The community (congregation ''Mikvé Israel'') dates from the 1650s, and consisted of

Spanish and Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the ...

from the Netherlands and Brazil. In the nineteenth century there was a breakaway

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...

community (Emanu El); the two merged to form the present community in 1964. The community is now affiliated with Reconstructionist Judaism. The first synagogue building was purchased in 1674; the current building dates from 1730. One visitor to the synagogue observed, upon entering through a quiet courtyard, viewing the azure stained glass windows and walking across a sand covered floor toward the carved mahogany Holy Ark that the sand floors remind congregants "of how its Jewish ancestors on the Iberian peninsula covered the floors of their makeshift prayer houses so that their footsteps would be muffled and the suspicion of potential denouncers would not be aroused." With its three high vaulted ceilings, the Holy Ark and the pulpit, the galleries, the benches and the chandeliers, the interior of the synagogue bears a marked resemblance to the

Portuguese Synagogue The Portuguese Synagogue, also known as the Esnoga, or Snoge, is a late 17th-century Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam, completed in 1675. ''Esnoga'' is the word for synagogue in Judaeo-Spanish, the traditional Judaeo-Spanish language of Sephardi ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

. Attached to the synagogue is the Jewish Historical Cultural Museum, whose collection includes replicas of artistic tombstones from the Beit Chaim Bleinheim in Curaçao, the oldest Jewish cemetery still in use in the Western Hemisphere. The other

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

island in the Caribbean with a historical synagogue is Sint Eustatius, where the ruins of the ''Honen Dalim'' synagogue of 1739 still stand on the ''Synagogepad''. An even older synagogue existed at

Jodensavanne ''Jodensavanne'' (Dutch, "Jewish Savanna") was a Jewish plantation community in Suriname, South America, and was for a time the centre of Jewish life in the colony. It was established in the 1600s by Sephardi Jews and became more developed and wea ...

, Suriname, ''Beracha ve Shalom'' ("Blessings and Peace"), built between 1665 and 1671. Unlike the Curaçao synagogue, however, these other synagogues are no longer in use. File:Curaçao synagogue2.jpg, sanctuary with mahogany bemah File:Curaçao synagogue4.jpg, view through shuttered windows File:Curaçao synagogue3.JPG, mahogany bemah showing sand floor File:Curaçao synagogue5.JPG, western facade, Hebrew inscriptions over entrance File:Curaçao synagogue6.JPG, courtyard view looking outward

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curacao synagogue Synagogues in Curaçao Sephardi Jewish culture in the Caribbean Sephardi Jewish culture in the Netherlands Sephardi Reform Judaism Sephardi synagogues Spanish and Portuguese Jews Reconstructionist Judaism in North America Reconstructionist synagogues 18th-century synagogues Buildings and structures in Willemstad

See also

References