Happy Women’s History Month! Help JWA continue to lift up Jewish women’s stories, this month and every month, by making a gift today!
Close [x]

Show [+]

SusanÌâå«s exhibition is important and I hope to help take it to Recife, the city on the northeast coast of Brazil where the first Settellers in New Amsterdam originated.

The first jews here came with the initial Portuguese colonisers as New Cristians in the early 16th Century. They lived side by side with the Portuguese in the historic city of Olinda (close to Recife), now a well preserved UNESCO World Heritage City. These jews had the money and the know how to develop Engenhos to refine sugar, so were important to the Portuguese, but as New Christians they had to keep their religious idindity secret until the Dutch invasion, a period of time that saw the building of the street of the Jews and the first synagogue in the Americas.

The synagogue, the sugar mills and many of the houses the jews occupied in Olinda still stand. They will be the focus of tours I am developing for my travel guides. You can read more detailson my site.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now