Suriname, formerly Dutch Guiana

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

Kerkeraad Der Nederlands Portugees Israelitische Gemeente in Suriname
PO Box 1834
(Klipsenstr. 2-10)
Paramaribo,
Tel. 597 471 313, Fax. 597 471 154.

http://www.haruth.com/JewsSuriname.html [October 2000]
http://www.isjm.org/Links/surcem.htm: Suriname Cemetery Project [2000]
http://www.cq-link.sr/personal/debye/index/ History of the Jews of Suriname. [October 2000]

[UPDATE] Holocaust Memorial Unveiled in Suriname [January 2017]

Source: select the Suriname link at http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/comm_north.html: Jews arrived between 1635 and 1639. Spanish and Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam arrived when the Dutch occupied Suriname in 1668. By the first half of the 1700's, Ashkenazic Jews from Rotterdam raised the Jewish population to 2,000, about 50%. Settling in Jodensavanne, an autonomous town, they owned 115 sugar plantations and named site with Hebrew names. [February 2003]

"Great Britain claimed the territory of Surinam in 1665. Rather surprisingly, given their history of colonizing other tropical colonies of the British Empire, British citizens did not seem to want to settle in Surinam. The British government decided to attract Jewish settlers to Surinam by offering them full British citizenship, recognition of their Sabbath, and ten acres of land to build a synagogue." source: "History of the Jews of the Caribbean", by Ralph G.Bennett, article located at http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/011/jewcar.html