Jodensavanne (Jewish Savannah) was settled by a population of Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition on mainland Europe in the mid-seventeenth century. The English, and later Dutch, colonists encouraged the Jewish group to settle and own the land along the River Suriname, making this the first and only location in the New World where Jews were granted a semi-autonomous settlement. (...)
Jodensavanne (Jewish Savannah) was settled by a population of Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition on mainland Europe in the mid-seventeenth century. The English, and later Dutch, colonists encouraged the Jewish group to settle and own the land along the River Suriname, making this the first and only location in the New World where Jews were granted a semi-autonomous settlement. In 1665 they settled on piece of land close to Cassipora Creek to build a synagogue and lay out a cemetery. Shortly afterwards, the community moved to a hill overlooking the River Suriname where the settlement of Jodensavanne was founded, later to become the largest Jewish settlement of the hemisphere.
In 1685 the synagogue of Beraha VeShalom was inaugurated. The Bracha VeShalom was the first brick synagogue of major architectural importance in the New World. The former settlement of Jodensavanne and the cemetery at Cassipora bear a unique testimony and mark an important stage in the Euro-Sephardic colonization of the Western Hemisphere.
At the end of the seventeenth century, approximately 575 Jews lived in Jodensavanne, now a flourishing agricultural settlement of more than 40 plantations and roughly 1,300 slaves. By the nineteenth century, however, most of the Jews with roots in Jodensavanne had moved to the capital, Paramaribo, due to the decline of the sugarcane industry. After a great fire in 1832 the settlement was abandoned.
