History of the Jews in Suriname
The history of the Jews in Suriname begins in 1639, when the English government allowed Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the Netherlands, Portugal, and Italy to settle in the area around the old capital, Torarica. The first Jews joined a tobacco-growing settlement at Marshall Creek, where a Jewish marriage contract (ketubah) was recorded in 1643. That settlement was eventually abandoned, along with other early attempts at colonization.
In 1652 a new wave of Jewish settlers arrived under Francis, Lord Willoughby, settling near Jodensavanne, not far from Torarica. Many came from the Pernambuco Jewish plantocracy, who had helped develop sugarcane cultivation and processing, often using slave labor. Some knowledge was transferred to the Dutch West India Company, while other planters fled the Inquisition after Pernambuco fell to the Portuguese. These refugee planters often had enough capital to start new plantations in the colonies. A historian notes that the Jews tended to be long-term residents who viewed the colony as a safe place free from persecution, unlike others who hoped to return home after earning enough money.
A third wave arrived in 1664, led by David Cohen Nassy, after their expulsion from Recife and then French Guiana. Suriname became one of the region’s most important centers of Jewish life, with Jews working as planters and slaveholders. On August 17, 1665, the English granted Jews in Suriname freedom of religion, the right to build synagogues and religious schools, and an independent court and civic guard under Jewish control—giving Suriname’s Jewish community a high degree of political autonomy long before the founding of Israel in 1948. These rights remained when the Dutch took over in 1667.
The plantation economy around Jodensavanne relied on slave labor, and the community faced challenges over time. The French Cassard expedition of 1712, competition from beet sugar, and Maroon raids weakened the area. Most Jews eventually moved to Paramaribo, though they continued to visit Jodensavanne for holidays until a fire destroyed the village and its synagogue on September 10, 1832. The savanna gradually returned to jungle.
From early on, Afro-Surinamese Jews lived in Suriname as well. In the Caribbean, Suriname had the largest Black Jewish population. European Jews sometimes converted enslaved people and the children of mixed-race couples. In 1767–68, Dutch Jew Salomon Levy Maduro published Sefer Brit Itschak with prayers for converting and circumcising enslaved people, reflecting the importance of bringing enslaved people into Judaism. By the late 18th century, many Afro-Surinamese Jews were born into Jewish families, though they were not treated as equals by white Jews.
Discrimination persisted. Black and mixed-race Jews were allowed in synagogues but faced separate seating and limited participation. In 1841 they finally gained equal religious rights. A separate community for Jews of color, Darhe Jesarim (also called Darje Jesariem), formed in 1791 but lasted only a few years; its building was destroyed in 1804, and a city square now stands where it once stood. By the 18th century, the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities in Suriname began to blend, and they would officially fuse in 1999.
Three main synagogues were built in Suriname: Beracha Ve Shalom in Jodensavanne (1685), Neveh Shalom in Paramaribo (1719), and Zedek ve Shalom (1735). The last remaining synagogue later switched from Orthodox to Progressive Judaism in 2004, and the community—centering around Neve Shalom in Paramaribo—numbered about 130 people in a combined Sephardic-Ashkenazic congregation.
Many Jews left Suriname after its independence in 1975, and again during the civil war of the 1980s. In a 21st-century census, 181 of Suriname’s 560,000 residents identified Judaism as their religion. In the 1990s, jungle growth around Jodensavanne was cleared, about 450 graves were uncovered, and the synagogue ruins were preserved.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:00 (CET).