Creole Jews: Negotiating Community in Colonial Suriname

321 Pages·2010·5.405 MB·English

by  Wieke Vink

CREOLE JEWS
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
koninklijk instituut
voor taal-, land- en volkenkunde
Caribbean Series 28
wieke vink
CREOLE JEWS
Negotiating community in colonial Suriname
KITLV Press
Leiden
2010
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
Published by:
KITLV Press
Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
(Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies)
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
website: www.kitlv.nl
e-mail: [email protected]
KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
(KNAW)
Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp
ISBN 978 90 6718 343 7
© 2010 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the
copyright owner.
Printed in the Netherlands
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
Table of contents
Acknowledgements v
List of fi gures and tables xi
Glossary xiii
I Introducing Jewishness, creolization and the colonial domain
Memories of bygone days 1
Connecting Judaism, creolization and colonialism 5
Browsing through history: On periodization and archival research 10
Outline 14
Some notes on terminology 16
Part One Forging a community 18
II A colonial Jewish community in the making
Pattern of migration and places of settlement 21
Port of origin: Amsterdam 21
Dynamics and dimensions of a small-scale Jewish community 23
The birth of a Jewish community in Suriname 24
Growth 26
Colonial adventures, poor migrants and the Amsterdam connection 29
Decline 34
Places of settlement 37
Jodensavanne: Heart of the Portuguese Jewish planters’ community 37
The multi-ethnic environment of Paramaribo 41

III Making a living in the colony
Social context, economic activities and cultural life 45
Economic activities 47
The fate of the Jewish planters’ class 47
Reorientation: Making a living in an urban colonial environment 53
A community losing ground: Economic hardship and declining
fi nta revenues 57
Socio-cultural life in the colony: Societies and lodges 59
Societies and lodges 59
Informal interactions and cross-cultural contacts 63

KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
vi Table of contents
IV Colonial confi gurations and diasporic connections
Patterns of rule, civil status and religious authority 69
Authority and citizenship 69
Political structures in Suriname’s plantocracy 69
Controlling the community: The Jewish privileges 71
Negotiating civil rights (1816-1825) 78
After 1825: Between marginalization and political domination 82
The limits of tolerance 87
Diasporic connections 91
The Chief Commission of Israelite Affairs 93
Negotiating the Askamoth 95
Dutch rabbis in Suriname 95
How a community was forged 101
Part Two Cultivating differences, localizing boundaries 105
V Echoes of the other
Locating Jews and imagining Jewish difference in Suriname 107
Perspectives on Jewish whiteness, dominance and colonial ‘otherness’ 109
The ‘white man’: A Maroon’s perspective 109
Echoes of the ‘other’: The image of the cruel Jewish planter 113
The Surinamese Jew as colonial ‘other’? A painting by P.J. Benoit (1839) 125
‘White but Jewish’: Locating Jews in Suriname’s colour system 130
Shem’s legacy: An undefi ned status in the age of colonial expansion 132
Confronting Jewish difference: The case of the civil guard 134
From ‘white’ to ‘native’: Jewish and the senses 138

VI Spaces of death, mirror of the living
The cemetery as a site of creolization 147
Spaces of death, mirror of the living 148
A tour of Suriname’s Jewish cemeteries 152
Cassipora and Jodensavanne cemeteries 152
Jewish cemeteries and creole grave markers in Paramaribo 160
Critical events at the Surinamese-Jewish cemeteries 165
The burial of the coloured Jew Joseph de David Cohen Nassy 166
‘Bad’ Jews at the Beth Haim? The burial of Isaq Simons (1825) 171
Creating a precedent: Mr Pinto and Mrs Pinto-Fernandes (1891) 172
Dario Saavedra (1911): Allegro and andante 175
Inappropriate ceremonies? The burial of Coenraad Samuels (1913) 179
Sarah’s Hofje 181
The cemetery as a site of creolization? 183
VII New World identifi cations, Old World sensibilities
On eliteness, religiosity and social status 187
Colonial elites and religious superiority 188
Negotiating an elite status 196
Good Jews 196
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Table of contents vii
Making and breaking boundaries 196
Forced inclusion and community control 196
Marrying the other (I): High German-Portuguese mixed marriages 201
Belonging and widowhood: The story of the widows Da Fonseca
and Levij Hart 205
Blurring boundaries and prevailing notions of difference 209
Reluctant overtures 210
In search of authenticity and differentiation 212
Colonial nostalgia 214

VIII Black, white, Jewish?
Colour, Halakha and the limits of Jewishness 221
Racialized boundaries: The shifting status of coloured Jews 223
Coloured Jews and Halakha 223
The story of Darhe Jessarim 229
Marrying the other (II): White-coloured mixed marriages
and dissolving colour lines 237
The last boundary: Jews and non-Jews, coloureds and Christians 243
Marrying the other (III): Jewish-Christian mixed marriages and
the revival of Halakha 243
Defi ning Surinamese Jewishness: Between colour and Halakha 253

IX Conclusion
The Creole, the colonial and the metropole 259
Delimiting ‘white’ creolization 260
The colonial and the diaspora 265
Creole Jews or European whites? The semantics of colonizers and Creoles 266
Bibliography 271
Index 295
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed to the creation of this text in one way or
another. First, this book would have been impossible to write without the
help and hospitality of the people who welcomed me in their community
and history. Special thanks are due to René Fernandes (†), Jules Donk, Jules
Robles, Lily Duym, Leendert Duym, and all those others: I hope that this
book will in some way contribute to an ongoing interest in their community
history. I thank Adriana van Alen for welcoming me into her home to study
the archives of the High German Jewish community.
Michiel Baud and Alex van Stipriaan inspired me to pursue a career in the
fi eld of non-Western history. Both have been essential as mentors in moulding
my historical conscience. A sincere grantangi goes to Alex. I am extremely
grateful for his patience and keen academic spirit, and for his unwavering
support during all the good and the bad times. A special thanks goes to
Maria Grever and Siep Stuurman, who triggered me to look beyond my own
conceptual boundaries. The members of the Centre for Historical Culture
in Rotterdam commented on several chapters during our research group
sessions, and offered a stimulating environment in which I could explore new
avenues and approaches to my subject
Gijsbert Oonk, Karin Willemse, Henk Schulte Nordholt, Dick Douwes,
Joep à Campo, and Dienke Hondius let me share in their passion for and
interest in non-Western and colonial history. All have commented on various
parts of this book, contributing their insights. Gert Oostindie, Maria Grever,
Siep Stuurman, and Aviva Ben-Ur: I sincerely thank them for their insightful
criticisms and detailed comments. I thank Jean-Jacques Vrij for providing me
with several chapters from his forthcoming book, and for his elaborate and
detailed answers to my questions. I am indebted to Ad de Bruijne for sharing
his knowledge of socio-economic and demographic history of Paramaribo.
Evelien Gans, Tony Kushner, Milton Shain, Karin Hofmeester, Selma
Leydesdorff, Pieter Spierenburg, and Diego Pos gave me the confi dence that
my work actually mattered, at least to some.
A warm thanks goes to Anouk de Koning, for being a true friend and
an inspiring fellow historian and anthropologist. I am grateful to her for
KITLV | Creole Jews (28) - Vink