History of the Jews in Guyana

The location of Guyana in South America

Ethnic group

Guyanese JewsTotal population

40 (2007)
Languages
English, Hebrew, Yiddish
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Other Jewish groups
(Ashkenazi, Sephardi, etc.)
Part of a series on

Jews and Judaism

* Etymology
* Who is a Jew?

Religion

* God in Judaism (names)
* Principles of faith
* Mitzvot (613)
* Halakha
* Shabbat
* Holidays
* Prayer
* Tzedakah
* Land of Israel
* Brit
* Bar and bat mitzvah
* Marriage
* Bereavement
* Baal teshuva
* Philosophy
* Ethics
* Kabbalah
* Customs
* Rites
* Synagogue
* Rabbi

Texts

|  Tanakh

* Torah
* Nevi'im
* Ketuvim

Talmud

* Mishnah
* Gemara

Rabbinic

* Midrash
* Tosefta

* Targum
* Beit Yosef
* Mishneh Torah
* Tur
* Shulchan Aruch
* Zohar

History

|  General

* Timeline
* Land of Israel
* Name "Judea"
* Antisemitism
* Anti-Judaism
* Persecution
* Leaders
* Modern historiography
* Historical population comparisons

Ancient Israel

* Twelve Tribes of Israel
* Kingdom of Judah
* Kingdom of Israel
* Jerusalem (in Judaism
* timeline)
* Temple in Jerusalem (First
* Second)
* Assyrian captivity
* Babylonian captivity

Second Temple period

* Yehud Medinata
* Maccabean Revolt
* Hasmonean dynasty
* Sanhedrin
* Schisms (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, Sicarii)
* Second Temple Judaism (Hellenistic Judaism)
* Jewish–Roman wars (Great Revolt, Diaspora, Bar Kokhba)

Rabbinic period and Middle Ages

* Rabbinic Judaism
* History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire
* Christianity and Judaism (Jews and Christmas)
* Hinduism and Judaism
* Islamic–Jewish relations
* Middle Ages
* Golden Age

Modern era

* Haskalah
* Sabbateans
* Hasidism
* Jewish atheism
* Emancipation
* Old Yishuv
* Zionism
* Soviet Union
* The Holocaust
* Israel
* Arab–Israeli conflict

Communities

* Ashkenazim
* Galician
* Litvak
* Mizrahim
* Sephardim
* Teimanim
* Beta Israel
* Gruzinim
* Juhurim
* Bukharim
* Italkim
* Romanyotim
* Cochinim
* Bene Israel
* Berber
* Crimean Karaites
* Krymchaks
* Kaifeng Jews

Related groups

* Bnei Anusim
* Lemba
* Igbo Jews
* Samaritans
* Crypto-Jews
* Anusim
* Dönmeh
* Marranos
* Neofiti
* Xueta
* Mosaic Arabs
* Subbotniks
* Noahides

Population

* Judaism by country
* Lists of Jews
* Diaspora
* Historical population by country
* Genetic studies

Israel and Palestine

* Old Yishuv
* New Yishuv
* Israeli Jews
* Palestinian Jews

Africa

* Algeria
* Angola
* Bilad-el-Sudan
* Botswana
* Cameroon
* Cape Verde
* Benin
* Democratic Republic of the Congo
* Djibouti
* Egypt
* Ethiopia
* Eritrea
* Eswatini
* Gabon
* Gambia
* Ghana
* Guinea
* Guinea-Bissau
* Ivory Coast
* Kenya
* Libya
* Madagascar
* Malawi
* Mali
* Mauritius
* Morocco
* Mozambique
* Namibia
* Nigeria (Igbo)
* Republic of the Congo
* São Tomé and Príncipe
* Sierra Leone
* Somalia
* South Africa
* Sudan
* Tanzania
* Tunisia
* Uganda (Abayudaya)
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe

Asia

* Afghanistan
* Bahrain
* Cambodia
* China
* Hong Kong
* India
* Indonesia
* Iran
* Iraq
* Israel
* Japan
* Jordan
* Kazakhstan
* Kurdistan
* Kuwait
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* South Korea
* Singapore
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* Syria
* Tajikistan
* Taiwan
* Thailand
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* Uzbekistan
* Vietnam
* Yemen

Europe

* Armenia
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* Belarus
* Bulgaria
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* Czechia
* Denmark
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* France
* Georgia
* Germany
* Greece
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* Netherlands
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* Spain
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* Ukraine
* United Kingdom

Northern America

* Canada
* United States
* Greenland

Latin America and Caribbean

* Argentina
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* Brazil
* Chile
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* Cuba
* Dominican Republic
* Ecuador
* El Salvador
* Guyana
* Haiti
* Jamaica
* Mexico
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* Peru
* Puerto Rico
* Suriname
* Uruguay
* Venezuela

Oceania

* Australia
* Fiji
* Guam
* New Zealand
* Palau

Denominations

* Orthodox
* Modern
* Haredi
* Hasidic
* Reform
* Conservative
* Karaite
* Reconstructionist
* Renewal
* Science
* Haymanot
* Humanistic

Culture

|  Customs

* Minyan
* Wedding
* Clothing
* Niddah
* Pidyon haben
* Kashrut
* Shidduch
* Zeved habat
* Conversion to Judaism
* Aliyah
* Hiloni

Music

* Religious
* Secular

Art

* Ancient
* Yiddish theatre
* Dance
* Humour

Cuisine

* American
* Ashkenazi
* Bukharan
* Ethiopian
* Israeli
* Israelite
* Mizrahi
* Sephardic

Literature

* Israeli
* Yiddish
* Judeo-Tat
* American

Languages

* Hebrew
* Biblical
* Mishnaic
* Medieval
* Modern
* Bukharian
* Ghardaïa Sign
* Jewish Koine Greek
* Judeo-Arabic
* Judeo-Aramaic
* Judeo-Berber
* Judeo-Gascon
* Judaeo-Georgian
* Judaeo-Iranian
* Judeo-Italian
* Judeo-Malayalam
* Judaeo-Spanish
* Judeo-Tat
* Knaanic
* Shassi
* Yeshivish
* Yevanic
* Yiddish
* Zarphatic

Politics

|  Jewish political movements

* Autonomism
* Bundism
* Feminism
* Leftism
* Secularism
* Territorialism
* World Agudath Israel

Zionism

* General
* Green
* Labor
* Kahanism
* Maximalism
* Neo-Zionism
* Religious
* Revisionist
* Post-Zionism

* Category
* Portal

* v
* t
* e

Part of a series on the

History of Guyana

* Arawak peoples
* Carib people

|  Essequibo|  1616–1815

|

Berbice|  1627–1815
Pomeroon|  1650–1689
Demerara|  1745–1815
British Guiana|  1814–1966
Independence|  1966–1970
Co-operative Republic|  1970–present
Guyana portal

* v
* t
* e

The history of the Jews in Guyana goes as far back as the 1600s. Representation has always been low, and by the 1930s there was neither an organized Jewish community nor a synagogue in the capital city of Georgetown.[1] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several Jewish families immigrated to British Guiana from Arab lands to avoid persecution and expand business opportunities.

## History

[edit]

### Pre 20th Century

[edit]

The earliest records of Jews in Guyana was in the mid-1600s, when Jewish settlers arrived in the Dutch colony of Essequibo. In 1658, the Dutch agreed with David Nassy to establish a colony of Jews on the Pomeroon River, which flourished, becoming a prized possession of the Dutch, until its destruction in 1666 by an incursion by the English from Barbados under Major John Scott.[2] The Jews of Pomeroon (Bowroom) fled, following the destruction of their colony, mostly to Suriname, where they were granted unprecedented religious freedoms.

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|

British Guiana was part of the expanding British Empire, which included much of the Middle East. The expansion of the sugar cane industry in British Guiana allowed the British to encourage workers (initially indentured Portuguese from Madeira, and then East Indians from South India), and the expansion of the economy brought opportunities to Jews from warm lands to emigrate. Most of the Jewish migration during this period came from British controlled portions of the Middle East including what is now modern Iraq, and were erroneously identified as Assyrians and called "Syrians." Prominent among these families were affluent Jews including the Elias family from Palestine who ran several mercantile exchanges until the great fires of the 1960s put them out of business. There were also several other Jewish merchant families erroneously identified as Arabs. Until the 1960s, there were close to a few hundred Jewish merchants who were categorized as "Syrians". Most of the Jews returned to the Middle East after racial resentment and political upheaval culminated with race riots of the 1960s.

### 20th century

[edit]

Prior to World War II, the leadership of Nazi Germany discussed the possibility of exiling the German Jewish population to British Guiana.[3] Winston Churchill had also raised the possibility of relocating up to 250,000 Jews to British Guiana, but his proposal was rejected by then-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.[4] In early 1939, 165 Jewish refugees travelling on the S.S. Koenigstein from Europe were refused disembarkation and entry, and not long after the government prohibition immigration.[5]

After World War II began, the British colonial administration in charge of Guyana agreed to provide shelter for 50 Jewish refugees who escaped Europe through Spain. These refugees emigrated after the war.[6]

### 21st century

[edit]

Today there are a few Jewish communities in Georgetown.

## Notable people

[edit]

Janet Jagan, an American-born Jewish woman married to a Guyanese national, served as prime minister from March 17, 1997, to December 19, 1997, and as president of Guyana from December 19, 1997, to August 11, 1999. However, Jagan downplayed her faith, telling a journalist in a 2000 interview that "Jewishness wasn't much of a factor in my life." Jagan also added that as of 2000, "There's no Jewish community in Guyana."[7]

## See also

[edit]

* Guyana portal
* Judaism portal

* Demographics of Guyana
* List of Caribbean Jews
* History of the Jews
* History of Guyana

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Mordechai Arbell (2003). The Portuguese Jews of Jamaica. Canoe Press. p. 3\. ISBN 978-9768125699.
2. ^ Oppenheim, Samuel (1907). "An Early Jewish Colony in Western Guiana, 1658-1666: And its Relation to the Jews in Surinam, Cayenne and Tobago". Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society. 16 (16): 95–186\. JSTOR 43059606.95-186&rft.date=1907&rft_id=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43059606#id-name=JSTOR&rft.aulast=Oppenheim&rft.aufirst=Samuel&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:History+of+the+Jews+in+Guyana" class="Z3988">
3. ^ Francis R. Nicosia (2000). The Third Reich and the Palestine Question. Transaction Publishers. p. 3\. ISBN 978-0765806246.
4. ^ Lousie London (2003). Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press. p. 100\. ISBN 978-0521534499.
5. ^ "The Jewish Community of Guyana". The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
6. ^ "Guyana During the Second World War". Guyana.org. Retrieved 2013-08-06.
7. ^ J.J. Goldberg (April 1, 2009). "Guyana Leader Was Always Her Own (Jewish) Woman". The Forward. Retrieved 2013-08-06.

## External links

[edit]

* JNS - The Jewish Guianas

* v
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History of the Jews in the Americas

Sovereign
states|

* Antigua and Barbuda
* Argentina
* Bahamas
* Barbados
* Belize
* Bolivia
* Brazil
* Canada
* Chile
* Colombia
* Costa Rica
* Cuba
* Dominica
* Dominican Republic
* Ecuador
* El Salvador
* Grenada
* Guatemala
* Guyana
* Haiti
* Honduras
* Jamaica
* Mexico
* Nicaragua
* Panama
* Paraguay
* Peru
* Saint Kitts and Nevis
* Saint Lucia
* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Suriname
* Trinidad and Tobago
* United States
* Uruguay
* Venezuela

Dependencies
and territories|

* Anguilla
* Aruba
* Bermuda
* Bonaire
* British Virgin Islands
* Cayman Islands
* Curaçao
* Falkland Islands
* French Guiana
* Greenland
* Guadeloupe
* Martinique
* Montserrat
* Puerto Rico
* Saba
* Saint Barthélemy
* Saint Martin
* Saint Pierre and Miquelon
* Sint Eustatius
* Sint Maarten
* South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
* Turks and Caicos Islands
* U.S. Virgin Islands

* North America
* Central America
* Caribbean
*   * Latin America
*   * South America

* v
* t
* e

History of the Jews in South America

Sovereign states|

* Argentina
* Bolivia
* Brazil
* Chile
* Colombia
* Ecuador
* Guyana
* Paraguay
* Peru
* Suriname
* Uruguay
* Venezuela

Dependencies and
other territories

* Falkland Islands
* French Guiana
* South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

* v
* t
* e

Ancestry and ethnicity in Guyana

Indigenous|

* Akawaio
* Arawak
* Lokono
* Carib
* Taruma
* Macushi
* Patamona
* Pemon
* Wai-Wai
* Wapishana
* Warao

Non-Indigenous|

* African
* Brazilian
* Chinese
* Dutch
* Indian
* Jewish
* Portuguese

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