The sand covering the floor sticks to the heel of Stephen Henriques’ shoe as he crunches across the synagogue, from the bimah, which stands like a wooden oasis in the middle of the sand, to the Ark, looming mightily at the head of the congregation. The lay leader pauses briefly to speak to some people on the left side of the synagogue, and they began to shift their chairs, arranging them so that one chair sits in the middle. He finishes his journey, climbing to a podium nestled beside the ark, and begins to speak, though it is hard to hear his voice over the whir of the fans oscillating around the circumference of the synagogue, the rain falling on the tropical island outside, and the noise of the traffic of Kingston. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Norma Mudahy, and to celebrate the matriarch of our community,” he says.

The Jews of Jamaica are disappearing, but few outsiders know that there are Jews in Jamaica in the first place. Today, most of the island’s ancient community lies in one of Jamaica’s many Jewish graveyards. These graveyards are hidden, tucked away in unknown places. One is behind a bottling factory in the worst slums of Kingston, but its graves date back to the mid-seventeenth century. Vandals have visited one graveyard, its tombstones engraved with the Magen David and Hebrew letters have been shattered and destroyed for their valuable brick and marble, and is home to a large herd of goats, who keep the grass short. Today, there are only about 200 Jews in Jamaica, and their number shrinks by the year.

The man who tells me about the graves and the shrinking population is David C. Henriques, brother of the lay leader who speaks at the bimah. He says it with wry, self-deprecating humor before the combination Shabbat and birthday party begins. He sits in the back of the Synagogue, though his status within the community indicates he should sit in the front. He clutches an umbrella like a cane and the way he grips the wooden handle forces his body to slump forward, making a small belly appear larger, and frowns, causing him to appear more intimidating as the shadows of Shabbat candles flicker across the wrinkles of his face. He wears a simple white shirt and dark, nondescript pants. A yarmulke sits comfortably on the back of his head.

He looks like a typical Jewish curmudgeon, the same man you see kvetching about the Mets at the local bagel shop in Long Island, with white hair and a severely receding hairline. But when he speaks, he speaks not with a typical New Yorker accent. Instead, he speaks with a lilting Jamaican accent, peppering his speech with ‘mon.’ David Henriques is an anomaly, though not on the island of Jamaica. He is the former president of Congregation Shaare Shalom, and like everyone else I have met tonight, he wants to tell me about the history of Jews on the island. Henriques, however, says it with a grim twist: the great history of the Jews of Jamaica is dangerously nearing its conclusion.  

Once, Jamaica sustained a Jewish community of thousands, beginning in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1492, Spain issued the Edict of Expulsion that forced Jews— referred to by history as Conversos, Crypto-Jews, or Portuguese— from their homes in the Iberian Peninsula following their forced conversions to Christianity in the 14th century. From there, the Sephardic diaspora of these Conversos spanned the globe. Banished from Spain, they turned to two places: Protestant cities marginally more welcoming of Jews such as Amsterdam, or the New World, where the Inquisition could not reach them.

Jamaica was an island ruled by the Columbus family, friendly to Jews. The explorer’s granddaughter married a crypto-Jew, Portugallo Colon, the Marquis of Jamaica, who gave Jews protection from the Spanish and their inquisition when asked. Jews began moving en masse to the island in 1530, coming from other ports in the New World, or Amsterdam in the old. They settled in Port Royal, at the mouth of Kingston Harbor, and Spanish Town, just upriver. They built a thriving community of merchants and made an island far from home, home. By the late 1600s, Jews owned land, were successfully trading and selling goods, and helped the English remove the Spanish presence from the island once and for all. They negotiated with pirates, petitioned kings for letters of patents, and, in 1831, and became citizens will full rights, gaining freedom from historic political disabilities.

For the next 350 years, congregations have come and gone, Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews alike have immigrated and emigrated, fire, and earthquake and hurricane have destroyed, and the Jews have rebuilt, as Jews are wont to do. This ancient and historic community has never been threatened with population loss like Stephen Henriques describes, until now— or, rather, until 1962, when Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain.

It is almost impossible to find concise data regarding the population of the small but historic Jewish community in Jamaica. In the 19th century, the Jewish population of Jamaica grew to more than 2,500. Since then, the population has declined. In 1901, 2,400 Jamaican Jews. In 1957, 1,600. At the turn of the 21st century, there were 300 Jews in Jamaica, and today, the community states there are about 200 or so practicing Jews, though they admit that estimate is generous.

The most significant drop in numbers came in the 1960s and 70s. In 1957, there were 1,600 Jews in Jamaica. In 1970, there were approximately 600. 1000 Jews did not die in those 13 years. There are two obvious, easy explanations for the rapid decline: the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, and British Independence in 1962.

Except, that’s not an easy explanation at all.

Jews didn’t leave the island following British independence. They were not British citizens— they were Jamaicans. Because of intermarriage and assimilation, the Jews of Jamaica are not a separate entity, like white Jamaicans who descended from the Plantocracy and ruling powers of slavery. These Jews are black and white, born and converted, married to Jews and non-Jews. The Jews of Jamaica were Jamaicans first, and they were eager to develop their home island following British independence. They served in Jamaican political office, produced the first national artists, captained industry, supported the arts, and founded schools like the Hillel Academy, a large, non-denominational international school that has produced some of Jamaica’s finest scholars from all backgrounds. There is no evidence to say Jews left the island because of independence, nor is there evidence to say they left due to the founding of Israel.

“We’ve had members of our congregation at the highest levels of government in Jamaica, both under British rule and since independence,” says Paul Matalon, Vice President of the United Congregation of Israelites. “We’ve had representatives in the parliament. My father was the Deputy Prime Minister of Jamaica, Minister of Security, Minister of Education, Mayor of Kingston. He was very political. We’ve had ambassadors to Washington, ambassadors to London.” His voice is hard to hear over the sound of blasting fans and the traffic of downtown Kingston, but he is still willing to discuss the state of his community, even though the Thursday afternoon air is humid, and the white of his dress shirt is starting to darken with sweat.

“Unfortunately, in the 70s, when we had that socialist experiment in Jamaica, the Jews were the first to go. Under Michael Manley, we were almost communists. His allegiance grew so tight to Castro that all the Jews left. They nationalized our businesses, and it was just uncomfortable.” Matalon explains that as education fell apart and the newly-founded Jamaican Government moved towards communism, the Jews of Jamaica grew nervous. Matalon grimaces as he says, “So they left. They went to England, Panama, Canada, the United States… mostly North America.”

Matalon’s explanation of his history and the history of the Jamaican Jews is interrupted by a family of tourists he was guiding earlier. They explain that they’re leaving and they have some family to visit. He shakes the hand of the husband, hugs the wife, and smiles fondly at their toddler daughter. The linen of his clothes rustles as he walks back towards us, his dress shoes clacking lightly on the linoleum of the congregation’s social hall floor. “Sorry about that,” he apologizes with a charming smile. He further explains that most people who visit the congregation are tourists who have family in Jamaica but live elsewhere. Sadly, he says that most Saturdays, the Synagogue doesn’t even have a Minyan— a quorum of ten Jews— for prayer. Matalon’s own family, he explains, also only visits Jamaica occasionally, like the tourists who just left.

“My family lived in Miami. I grew up here; I was born here. When I went away to school, I went to America. I went to Vanderbilt University. My sister went to Emory. My daughter went to Elon.” His expression is wistful.  “My daughter lives in Atlanta now. She loved Elon; I loved it more than her. She lives in Atlanta now, in Marietta. My son is still here in Jamaica, but Rachel didn’t stay. She didn’t come back when she graduated. She wanted to marry Jewish, so she made the decision to not to come back. America is different, but Rachel is American, for all practical purposes.”

And, finally, Paul tells me why the Jews of Jamaica are disappearing. “That’s the unfortunate part about Jamaica; the Jews are migrating, our children are migrating. Do I see our congregation staying open? Personally, I don’t. We have 130 members, of whom 40 practice. Any day that anything goes wrong here in Jamaica, those 40 are gone.”

The Jews of Jamaica are wealthy enough to afford a better life for their children. Unfortunately, a consequence of that better life is their children not returning. Their congregation is rapidly disappearing, and with it, a 400-year-old history disappears, too. And for Paul Matalon, that’s the saddest part.

“It’s distressing that you know that all this history and all this heritage will be gone,” he says. The tone of the conversation has grown somber, and Paul can barely be heard over the whirr and rocking of the oscillation of ceiling fans.  “The more that we can make our community known internationally, the better chance we have. We joined up with overseas organizations to preserve our cemeteries because we don’t have the resources. It’s a tremendous wealth of history, but our history hasn’t been written down, that’s the worst part for me. That nobody’s really written the history of the Jews of Jamaica in the modern time. Or the sad part, not the worst. That nobody has taken pen to paper, to really write, because there’s so much to be written.”

The community is not gone yet. And during Shabbat service the next evening, there are more than 40 practicing Jews present— a lot more. They are gathered to celebrate Norma— affectionately called Norms— Mudahy’s 90th birthday. Norma is small, her skin wrinkled and weather-worn. Her hair is a puff of white, like a cloud against the bright sun. Her eyes are covered by drooping eyelids, but when she makes eye contact, bright, ocean-blue eyes pierce through. She is surrounded by her siblings, her children, and her grandchildren, and none of them have left Jamaica yet. Stephen Henriques recounts her life, her accomplishments, her faith, and most importantly, her dedication to their congregation. She is always one of the ten needed for a Minyan, whether it be a small, Friday night Shabbat or Yom Kippur.

We sing Happy Birthday to Norma and move into the social hall, where yesterday, in an empty hall, Paul Matalon told me the Jewish community is disappearing. Tonight the room is packed to the gills. Here, celebrating their matriarch, one can see how diverse the Jamaican Jews are. They are young and old, black, white, and mixed in between. They all speak English, but their accents vary from Jamaican to American, to somewhere muddled and in the middle. When Norma speaks to thank the congregation, she sounds British, unchanged from her upbringing under Jamaica’s colonial ruler.

Tonight, this diverse group celebrates a woman who has raised presidents and vice-presidents of Congregation Shaare Shalom, who has remained steadfast in her love and support for her community, who has seen the British Colonial rule come and go, who has remained in Kingston despite threats of communism, of revolt, of violence. She has educated her children on the island, nurtured its community, fed its community. She is their collective mother, their collective grandmother. In celebrating its matriarch, maybe some Jews of Jamaica are reminded of how special their congregation is. Maybe, the Jews of Jamaica find a symbol of their community’s spirit and endurance. Maybe, the Jews of Jamaica become even more determined to protect and preserve their community, their history, and their home.