Genealogy: Some Resources for the Jewish Atlantic World

Many of the people who I have met who are interested in the Jewish Atlantic World either live in Jewish communities in these locales today or have ancestors from them, or both. So, I thought I'd spend a post doing what my younger (and hipper) colleagues call a "shout out" to all the family tree hunters, and provide a list of some of the resources that I have found (and see if readers have any others to add). Genealogy is key to the work I do, and it is hard to imagine how difficult it would be to do my research without the great work of genealogists past and present. In upcoming posts I will provide some resources specific to certain communities, but for now, here are some general resources that I have found essential:

1. Malcolm Stern's First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies, 1654-1988. Now available in a searchable online form at American Jewish Archives. Advantages: This is an important starting point for understanding the family trees of many of the first Jewish settlers in the U.S. colonies. Drawbacks: some of the information is incorrect, and although there is some information from the Caribbean and Europe, at times it feels like if someone moved to the West Indies, they fell off the map (or literally off the family tree).

2. Americans of Jewish Descent. A fully searchable online database of about 6,125 names of the founders and their descendants. Advantages: This fabulous resource updates and corrects much of Stern's work and incorporates other resources such as gravestones, portraits, and documents. Drawbacks: this database is still in production, so some of the areas (e.g. the Caribbean) aren't as strong as I am sure they will be down the road. You'll want to keep checking back if they don't list the person you are looking for yet.

3. Sephardicgen. Resources put together by Jeffrey S. Malka, author of the invaluable Sephardic Genealogy: Second Edition. Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their World. Advantages: Fabulous tips on how to get started, Sephardic names, and resources like family trees. Drawbacks: some of the links are broken, and you will still want to buy the book, which really is more of an advertisement than a drawback.

4. Sephardim.com. Resources put together by Harry Stein. Advantages: Sephardic names search engine and tons of great resources. Disadvantages: the homepage sings to you and is a bit hard to search.

5. Isaac S. and Suzanne A. Emmanuel's History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles and Rabbi Emmanuel's Precious Stones. These books sit on my desk and hardly a day goes by when I don't look up someone in one of them. Advantages: has marriage, death, and biographical data on most of the members of the Jewish community of Curacao and related islands. Disadvantages: Out of print and extremely expensive (Precious Stones is a bit cheaper). Worth every penny.

6. Jewish names in Suriname between 1666 and 1997. This is a list of the most common names in the Jewish Atlantic World. Advantage: Succinct. You will find there are a lot of lists of Sephardic names that aren't specific to the Jewish Atlantic World and that means wading through many names you will never see. This list has most of the important names you will need to know. Disadvantages: some families didn't make it to Suriname.

7. Geraldine Lane's Tracing Your Ancestors in Barbados. A Practical Guide. She even has a companion website. Also check out Lane's online databases for Tombstones, Plantation Records, and Slave Compensations. Advantages: This book is basically a researchers' fantasy: it tells you what resources are available, where, and what to do to prepare before you look for them. If someone would take the time to make a book like this for every place I go to do research, I would be in heaven. Disadvantages: a lot of the information is specific to Barbados and wouldn't help you with other communities.

8. Former British Colonial Dependency Slave Registers, 1812-1834. A fully searchable database of over three million slaves in the British colonies. Advantages: makes it possible to track African American ancestors in a way not easily done in the past. Jewish slave holding is a huge controversy, but Jewish-Black relations are an important part of colonial history . Disadvantages: this may be a better resource on slave owners than the slaves themselves. As such, it may provide some people with information they'd rather not know.

9. Trace Your Dutch Roots. A Dutch Genealogical Guide in blog format. Advantage: most of the Jews in the Atlantic World at some point lived in or were related to people in Amsterdam and the Dutch colonies, and this website provides access to some awesome resources. The blog is in English and lists which resources are available in English.

I hope this helps people get started! If you know of other key resources, please leave a comment! Also I am going to start posting photographs and resources related to specific famous families from the colonies, so if you have a family you'd like to hear more about, let me know!

My great-grandmother's little bamboo box that contained her mother's treasures from Barbados,
including tin types, marriage certificates, locks of hair, and an odd assortment of collectibles.
Where did your family members hide their treasures?

Image at top: Author's great-great grandmother, who was born in Barbados.
Courtesy of Stevan and Elizabeth Arnold and the little bamboo box.

Cemetery Cats

This post is dedicated to the felines of the Atlantic World: those sun-loving souls who spend their days (and nights) lounging in the cemeteries that grace the Atlantic Rim. This week I feature two cemetery cats: Wunzie (Newport) and Iyar (Ouderkerk aan de Amstel) as well as their sepulchral companions, the lions carved onto Beth Haim Ouderkerk gravestones.

Cat Number One: Wunzie. Officially, Wunzie lives down the street from the Trinity Church Cemetery in Newport, RI. Last time I was in Newport, however, Wunzie spent most of her time sunning herself on table stones and chasing bugs among the upright markers. A black and white DSH (domestic short hair: veterinary speak for "cat mutt") with a sparkling personality, Wunzie likes to ham it up for the camera.

Interestingly enough, Wunzie isn't the only "Anglican by choice" to hang around Trinity. Not all of the conversos who arrived in Newport from the Iberian Peninsula returned to Judaism. One of Aaron Lopez's cousins, for example, named James Lucena decided to become an Anglican instead. James eventually returned to Portugal (and Catholicism), but his son John Charles Lucena married a non-Jewish woman and was buried in an Anglican cemetery in London. Here are a few shots of Wunzie in her favorite haunt. If anyone in Newport knows how Wunzie is doing, let me know!

Wunzie Modeling a "Table Stone," Trinity Church (Anglican) Cemetery, Newport RI

Wunzie Catching a Bug, Trinity Church (Anglican) Cemetery, Newport RI

Cat Number Two: Iyar. Iyar is an official graveyard cat of the historic Portuguese-Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel in the Netherlands. She lives in the Caretaker's House with her younger cat companion and her master, Dennis Ouderdorp, who knows more about Jewish Cemeteries than anyone I have ever met. (Because I lack social graces, I only have a picture of Dennis's cat, and not Dennis himself.) Named for the Hebrew month of Iyar (meaning "Rosette" or "blossom"), Iyar is the matriarch of the cemetery. You will notice that like Wunzie, Iyar is a black and white DSH. Coincidence? I think so. The day I was in Ouderkerk ann de Amstel it was pouring rain, so I don't have quite as many photos of Iyar as I'd like, but here is another of her on one of the flat Sephardic table stones.

Iyar on an unidentified Table Stone, Beth Haim Ouderkerk

Iyar and her companion aren't the only cats in Beth Haim Ouderkerk. Although the earliest gravestones at Beth Haim Ouderkerk are free of images of living things, by the 1650s the use of vegetation appears, followed by death’s heads and human hands in the 1660s. By the 1680s animals, angels and biblical scenes with humans appear. One of the most popular animals to grace the stones are lions, several styles of which can be found in the cemetery. Lions are an important Jewish symbol, and often appear on Jewish ceremonial art, such Arks, Torah crowns, and menorot. The JHOM speculates that, "It is possible..that these lions, particularly those on many Torah Ark doors and curtains, are symbolic replacements of the original cherubim that once adorned the Ark of the Tabernacle in the Mishkan (portable Temple in the wilderness) and the Temple in Jerusalem." Lions—associated with the tribe of Judah and the Davidic monarchy—evoked the messiah and hence are an important eschatological reference. Lions are also associated with the Spanish-Portuguese name "Leon" (literally "lion") and are a common heraldic symbol (for example they are found on the coat of arms for "Castile and Leon," Spain and the Netherlands). Many of the lions in Beth Haim Ouderkerk are on heraldic lions (for example above right, gravestone of Benjamin Senior Teixeira, 1744). They can also be found, however, in biblical scenes, such as the one below depicting Daniel and the lions.

Detail of Gravestone Depicting Daniel and the Lions, Beth Haim Ouderkerk

Photo Credits: All Photos Laura Leibman, 2007-2009. Courtesy of Beth Haim Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.

Gravestone Symbols: The Hand of God

According to Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, belief in the corporeality of God is a heresy. Why then do gravestones from the Jewish Atlantic World often feature the hand of God cutting down the tree of life? In even more extreme cases, God was presented on gravestones as a fully anthropomorphized figure, such as on the gravestone of Samuel Senior Teixeria (Amsterdam 1717), and the gravestones of Yosiyahu Raphael Castillo (Barbados, 1698) and Esther Hana de Meza (Cassipora Cemetery, Suriname 1745).

The Hand of God has a long history in Jewish art. One of the earliest examples has been found in the wall paintings of the Synagogue at Dura Europos. Created around 244 CE, the synagogue at Dura Europos (Syria) was uncovered by archaeologists in 1932. The rich wall paintings were remarkably well preserved, because the synagogue had been filled in with dirt in an effort to protect the town from a Persian attack in 256 CE. Although at first the artwork made archaeologists skeptical skeptical that the structure was Jewish, today the wall decorations are considered one of the most famous examples of early synagogue art. Many of the frescoes are widely reprinted, particularly a Purim Procession featuring Mordechai. Less commonly reprinted, and perhaps more troubling, is the Akeidah (binding of Isaac) scene from above the Torah niche which features the hand of God staying the sacrifice (figure above at right).

Whereas the hand in the Dura Europos fresco prevents a death, the hands featured on the tombstones from the Jewish Atlantic World usually represent a life being ended. The motif can also be found in Kabbalistically-influenced Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe from the same era, though more commonly a flower is being picked, rather than a tree cut down. This is probably an illustration of the verse from Shir haShirim (Song of Songs) 6:2, “My beloved has gone down into his garden…to gather lilies.” Ruth Ellen Gruber provides an example from the Sadagora Cemetery in the Ukraine of the flower motif. The cut flower motif can also be found on gravestones in the Jewish Atlantic World, usually for those who died young, and occasionally the hand of God is replaced either by a putto (as in the example at the left from the gravestone of Marius Penso (1889, Beit Haim Berg Altena, Curacao; photograph Laura Leibman) or the angel of death (see example below)

Although cut flowers also represent a life cut short, the cutting of the tree has a slightly different resonance. As scholar Aviva Ben-Ur notes, the tree of life has particular importance in Jewish mysticism. As "an ancient, widespread symbol representing the `promise of immortality and everlasting youth,'" the tree of life "variably signifies in Jewish tradition Judgment, the return to Edenic paradise, the future Temple, and Messianic Jerusalem" (Still Life: Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and West African Art and Form in Suriname’s Jewish Cemeteries, 56).

Detail of Gravestone of David Raphael Hoheb (1756)
Old Sephardi Cemetery, Paramaribo, Suriname.
Photo by Laura Leibman.

Scholars have offered several explanations for the hand of God motif including Kabbalism, conversos' Catholic upbringing, the antinomian ("against the law") influence of the messianism practiced by Sabbatai Tzvi, and the lack of religious rigor in the colonies. I am curious what explanation seems most likely to readers of this blog.

Book Review: Houses of Life

I have a new favorite book: Joachim Jacobs' Houses of Life: Jewish Cemeteries of Europe. This book is a must have for anyone interested in either Jewish History, Genealogy, or Gravestone Art. Several things make this book fantastic: one, it provides a history of European Jewish cemeteries from the early Roman period through today. Two, it is beautifully illustrated: in addition to featuring some of the most important artwork created about these cemeteries (including the cover illustration by Chagal and the Prague Cycle), it is richly illuminated by the photographs of Hans Dietrich Beyer. I also appreciated the range of cemeteries they uncovered: although I own a book by Minna Rosen on the Haskoy Cemetery in Istanbul, I liked being able to see the photographs of that cemetery next to ones from the same era from elsewhere in Europe and hearing how it differed stylistically from other Sephardic cemeteries. The city maps with the cemeteries highlighted are awesome, as are the archival photographs.

Although some of the ground covered in this book has also been explored by Hannelore Kunzl in Judische Grabkunst von der Antike bis heute, Jacobs' book will have the strong advantage for most American readers of being in English. Given the large number of color photographs and images and the large number of communities and cemeteries it covers, this book is extremely well priced at $65 USD. Several communities in the Jewish Atlantic World are covered in the work including London, Sepharad (Iberia), Amsterdam, and modern Portugal.

My favorite piece of trivia from the book is that several European Jewish cemeteries had a stable or fenced-in pen for the bechorim (first-born kosher animals that couldn't be eaten except by Cohenim). What a great solution to a vexing problem!

Death Rituals: House of the Rounds

As my twin sister will attest, since an early age I have had an extreme fear of dead bodies. Once I was asked to be part of the women's chevra kaddisha in Portland, and although I was (briefly) tempted, I had to decline, as I knew I would never sleep again. I am not sure why this is. When I say I am afraid of "dead bodies," I mean dead people. Although I like live animals much better, I am not completely freaked out by dead animals: when I worked as a veterinarian's assistant, I had to deal with dead pets all the time. Sure I cried a lot, but once when asked to do so, I had to lump it and wash and prepare a dead schnauzer for an open casket funeral. It made me sad (and I felt like I needed to be paid more), but I went home, tucked myself into bed, and slept just fine. Dead people, however, are something else. I don't even like to work in cemeteries with recent burials, which for some reason I find more "creepy." Conveniently my research is mainly before the civil war, so I can usually avoid this problem. Kabbalah would say I am right to be wary of recent graves: according to Jewish mysticism there are at least three parts of the soul (nefesh, ruach, and neshama). After death these three parts of the soul suffer different fates, and the nefesh remains in the grave with the body until the body turns to dust. While in the grave, the nefesh undergoes the “pangs of the grave” (hibbut ha-kever). This means as well as being ritually impure, cemeteries are unhappy places.

Research interests aside, my fear of dead bodies is unfortunate, as one of the most important duties in Jewish life is to take care of the dead and prepare them for burial. Judaism has many rituals to help transition the body and soul of the deceased. In the Jewish Atlantic World one of the important places where these rituals took place was the "House of the Rounds" (Casa de Rodeos or Rodeamentos). This building served the same purpose as the tahara house in Ashkenazi cemeteries: it is where the ritual washing of the body occurred. A good depiction of this ritual was memorialized by the Prague Burial Society, which commissioned a series of paintings that depicted the various rituals performed by the Chevra Kaddisha (burial society) from sickbed to burial. In the Spanish-Portuguese rite, the eighteen members of the burial society also made seven circuits (hakafot) around the coffin.

“The Seven Circuits,” Bernard Picart (1673-1733), c. Royal Library of the Hague

Picart's eighteenth-century drawing depicts one such ceremony in the House of the Rounds in Amsterdam's Beth Haim Ouderkerk. The original seventeenth century tahara house was replaced in 1705 by the current building which still stands and was renovated in 1966 (below). One of the thoughtful features of this house was the wooden extension for Cohenim. Although most Jews could visit the dead after burial, those descended from the priestly family (Cohenim) are not permitted to walk in cemeteries. As Joachim Jacobs notes in his fabulous book Houses of Life, the extension allowed the Cohenim to "follow the hakafot through a window, without being under the same roof as the dead person (69)" Near the house, and right next to the entrance to the cemetery by the canal, is the separate section for the Cohenim that allowed them to see their relatives' graves without entering the cemetery proper.

Exterior of the Beth Haim Ouderkerk House of the Rounds;
the Cohenim's wooden extension (black) is on the left (Photo L. Leibman)

Interior of the House of the Rounds today with the
Death's head and washing stations shown in Picart's drawing (Photo L. Leibman)

New Cohenim Section near the House of the Rounds,
Beth Haim Ouderkerk (Photo L. Leibman)

Many other cemeteries in the Jewish Atlantic World used a House of the Rounds in the cemeteries. Few remain today, though two exquisite examples occur in Curaçao, one in the older Jewish cemetery (Beit Haim Bleinheim), and one in the newer Jewish cemetery (Beit Haim Berg Altena). Like Amsterdam's Beth Haim Ouderkerk, the older Jewish cemetery in Curaçao paid attention to the special needs of the Cohenim and even built a special house from which they could visit the dead and yet not violate Jewish law. The presence of the House of the Rounds is an important ritual element of the Jewish Atlantic World.

House of the Rounds, Beit Haim Bleinheim, Curaçao (Photo L. Leibman)
House of the Cohenim, Beit Haim Bleinheim, Curaçao (Photo L. Leibman)

House of the Rounds, Beit Haim Berg Altena, Curaçao (Photo L. Leibman)

Early American Letters: Abigail Levy Franks

In the 1730s-40s, Abigail Levy Franks (1696-1756) wrote a series of letters to her family. Like many letters, these range from mundane to heart wrenching: in the letter below to her son Naphtali, she wrote of her shock and despair on learning of her daughter's secret marriage to a non-Jew: "Good God Wath a Shock it was when they Acquanted me She had Left the House and Had bin Married Six months I can hardly hold my Pen whilst I am writting it. . . . My Spirits Was for Some time Soe Depresst that it was a pain for me to Speak or See Any one." These letters have been superbly collected and edited by Edith B. Gelles in The Letters of Abigaill Levy Franks, 1733-1748. A brief biography of Abigail Levy Franks is available online at the Center for Jewish History.

When reading colonial American letters, it helps to know why early Americans wrote. The eighteenth century is the age of the what is called the "familiar letter"—that is, “a mode of letter writing devoted to the expression of affection and duty among kin, family and friends.” Letters were not merely a way to communicate news: they provided a way to “pursue...claims to social refinement and upward mobility" (Dierks, “The Familiar Letter and Social Refinement in America,” 31.) Letter writing manuals like The Young Clerk's Guide (1708) and The Secretary's Companion (1728) provided scripts for people to follow in order to display their social graces appropriately; handwriting guides helped the writer learn to display her refinement visually. Letters were so popular a genre that many early American novels are written in an epistolary form: that is, as a sequence of letters (for example Hannah Foster's The Coquette [1797]).

Those who want to try their own hand at decoding Abigail's handwriting below may find my Early American Handwriting Game a helpful starting place.

Abigail Franks (1696-1756) to
Naphtali Franks (1715-1796).
Letter, June 7, 1743 [written from "Flatt bush"].
Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society,
New York and Newton Centre, Massachusetts (25)

Synagogue: View from the Gallery

One of the standard features of the synagogues of the Jewish Atlantic World is a women's gallery: a balcony supported by columns on two or three sides of the synagogue.

The concept of using a balcony for a women’s section comes from descriptions of the Temple: although at first there was no roof to the Women’s Court, a balcony on top of pillars was added later and screened in with latticework.

In the synagogues in Amsterdam, London and the new world sometimes latticework was used (as in the Esnoga and Bevis Marks) and sometimes a railing was used (as in Jamaica and Newport's Touro Synagogue). In Antiquity, latticework in synagogues was used to represent the firmament: the division between heaven and earth. The view from the women’s balcony in the synagogue, then, was paradoxically both elevated and restricted: through the geometric pattern of the lattice, the women viewed the service as if looking down through the firmament to earth.

Here are some views from the Balcony along with a haunting video of Vanessa Paloma singing the Ladino song "El Dio Alto" from the balcony of the Esnoga.

Vanessa Paloma in the Balcony of the Esnoga

The Balcony of Kahal Kadosh Shaare Shalom, Jamaica

The View from the Balcony of Neve Shalom Synagogue, Suriname

The View from Below:

Looking up at the Balcony in Mikve Israel (the "Snoa"), Curacao

View from the ground floor of the Touro Synagogue including of balconies HABS, Library of Congress)

Book Review: The Knell of Parting Day

A few years ago at the Conference for the Association for Gravestone Studies, some of us were lamenting that there weren't more books available on Jewish cemeteries. While a few old standards were available, they tended to be out of print, hard to find, and extremely expensive. The situation is starting to change, and one fine example of where the field is headed is Marilyn Delevante's The Knell of Parting Day: A History of the Jews of Port Royal and the Hunt's Bay Cemetery.

Portuguese Jews first settled on the island of Jamaica between 1530-1640, during the era of Spanish occupation. After the English conquest of the island, the community was able to openly worship as Jews and settled primarily in Port Royal and later in Spanish Town and Kingston. The Hunts Bay Cemetery served the historic community of Port Royal. As in Venice, Amsterdam, and Curacao, the deceased were carried by boat across the water to the cemetery.

This richly illustrated volume is a show case of the kind of new work being done in gravestone studies. In addition to a complete list of transcriptions and translations of the inscriptions from the cemetery and accompanying photos of the stones, the book provides a history of the Jews of Jamaica and Port Royal and places them within the larger story of the Sephardic diaspora. Attention is paid in chapter ten to the types and symbolism of the images used on the stones. Throughout the book are high quality color photographs by Jono David, whose online galleries of Jewish cemeteries are worth viewing.

This is the sort of book that will non-specialists will find fascinating and researchers will find invaluable. Copies can be purchased from the author for $35.00 US (softcover) or $45.00 U.S. (hardcover) at http://www.thejewsofjamaica.com/site2/purchase/purchase_index.html.

In the meantime, you may enjoy looking at this picasa web album of stones from the cemetery.

Grave Matters: Converso Funerary Art

When Isaac Lopez was buried in 1762, he joined the remains of many of his extended kin and other members of the Yeshuat Israel [Salvation of Israel] congregation. The Hevra kadisha (Burial Society) of Newport washed his body and prepared it for burial. The leader of the burial society then led the men in seven circuits around the body (Emmanuel PRECIOUS STONES 81). These circuits not only embedded the dead into the memory of the community, but also helped transition the deceased from the world of the living to the world to come.In Judaism, seven is a holy number symbolizing God, completion, and the covenant.One sign of this covenant was separation.

Jewish law requires that Jews be buried separately from their gentile neighbors, and in 1677 the Jews of Newport purchased and established a burial ground at the edge of town on the corner of what is now Kay Street and Bellevue Avenue (Gradwohl 20). The cemetery was far from both the town’s Protestant cemeteries, and the houses and businesses of most Jewish residents. After being prepared for internment, Isaac’s body was brought here and buried. A year later a gravestone was erected and “unveiled.”
Like the seven circuits made by mourners around the coffins of the dead, the gravestone laid over the tomb had a redemptive quality: it, like other stones in the cemetery, embedded the deceased in the Jewish community of Newport for all eternity, but also insisted upon the interrelatedness of Spanish, Portuguese, Jewish, and Colonial worlds of Isaac’s family. Like many of the Jews buried in the Touro cemetery, Isaac’s father Moses (1706-1767) was a converso or “crypto-Jew”; that is, he was a descendent of Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity and who had for centuries practiced Catholicism in public, and a form of Judaism in private.

Moses Lopez had come to Newport to escape a late wave of the inquisition in Portugal after his New Christian relatives denounced him for “Judaizing.” Moses was the older half-brother of Aaron Lopez, one of Newport’s most famous merchants. When Moses came to the Americas, he gave up his Portuguese Christian name (José Lopez Ramos) for a Hebrew one (Moseh) and its English equivalent (Moses). His wife was his first cousin Rebecca Rodriguez Rivera (? -1793), whose father Abraham Rodriguez Rivera (? -1765) had escaped the Spanish inquisition and fled to England and later Newport (Rodrigues Pereira 568, 579). Moses was naturalized in New York in 1740/41 and most (or all) of his children were born in Newport (Stern 175). Several of Moses and Rebecca’s children died young, but only the stones of Isaac (1762) and Jacob (1763) remain.


Acknowledgments:
This entry is an excerpt from a conference presentation given at the American Studies Association Conference in 2007. Research was funded by NEH and a Ruby Grant.

Colonial Houses: Home of a Hero

Scharlooweg 55, also known as "Beau Senior," is one of the few houses to exist both in Curacao and in miniature form in the Netherlands in a small town called "Madurodam." Built in 1875 for the Senior family (one of the major Jewish families in Curacao), the home was sold in 1915 to Joshua and Rebecca Levy Maduro family, members of another major Sephardic family on the island. It was the boyhood home of their only son, George John Lionel Maduro (1916-1945), who fought for the Dutch resistance in WWII, and died in Dachau concentration camp of typhus. After his death, his parents commemorated him by building the miniature city Madurodam in in Scheveningen, The Hague, in the Netherlands. A small version of his childhood home resides in the town.

Replica of 55 Scharlooweg in Madurodam

"Beau Senior" is typical of the Jewish houses built in the Scharloo neighborhood of Curacao in the nineteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most Jewish families lived in Punda (Willemstad) a few blocks away from the synagogue, in Landhuizen (plantation homes) inland, or in Otrobanda across the entryway to the bay. Starting in the late nineteenth century, Jewish families began to build houses across the Waaigat in Scharloo.

These houses tended to be neo-classical in design with a U-shaped plan surrounding an enclosed patio. This architectural style was both influenced by Latin American architecture and the discovery and excavation of Pompeii. As in Pompeii, the true grandeur of the house was only accessible to those allowed inside. The front of the house often belied the large house that lay behind it (see plan below). Even so, the front facade was an important way of showing social prestige: the monumental pediment above the doorway, the front columns, and the elegant grey and white tiles leading to the entryway all displayed luxury and good taste.

Simplified Floorplan of 55 Scharlooweg based on Winkel, Scharloo p. 295

The galleries were like European sitting rooms, furnished with mahogany and wicker furniture. In contrast, the Sala was mainly for show and were decorated with pianos, long narrow mirrors, and chandeliers. As in Pompeii, the patio was open to the sky. It was decorated with plants. Furniture in the bedrooms was monumental and made of hardwoods.

Bedroom furniture owned by the Maduros of Scharloo now in landhouse Rooi Catochi. (S.A.L. Mongui Maduro Foundation)

In the dining room was often a fontein, a small basin and water container for hand washing. Cupboards made of mahogany housed dishes and glasses. You can read more about Scharloo architecture and "Beau Senior" in P. Pruneti Winkel's Scharloo.

Fontein owned by Shon Serafina Maduro-Jesurun, now in landhouse Rooi Catochi. (S.A.L. Mongui Maduro Foundation)

Holidays: Purim

The book of Esther was particularly popular amongst conversos on the Iberian Peninsula. Many conversos kept the fast of Esther even when they kept few other Jewish holidays or traditions. New Christian women tended to identify with Queen Esther: like the Queen, many conversas had to submit to a gentile husband, either literally or figuratively (Catholic Spain).
Once conversos left the Iberian Peninsula and were free to practice Judaism openly, Purim remained an important holiday. The Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam contains many fine examples of richly illustrated Megillot, one of which is featured in the video below. The reading is from the Portuguese Esnoga.

Gravestones from the Jewish Atlantic World also feature scenes from the story of Esther. It was not uncommon for stones to feature Biblical scenes, particularly ones related to the name of the deceased. The detail of the stone at the top of the page is from the gravestone of Mordechay Hisquiau Namias de Crasto (1716) Beit Haim Blenheim, Curaçao. For the full stone and the inscription, see below. A similar scene appears in Beth Haim at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel on the stone of Moses de Mordechai Senior (1730) (left).

Classroom Resource:Gravestone of Mordechay Hisquiau Namias de Crasto (1716) Beit Haim Blenheim, Curaçao. This is one of the finest examples of gravestone art from the Jewish Atlantic World. Ask students what they think the different images mean and why they belong together on one stone. Why do you think the carver (or the family who requested the stone) chose this particular scene from the book of Esther?

Questions for Readers:
Do these stones surprise you, and if so how?

Book Review: Purim and the Persian Empire

I am one of those freaks who reads Herodotus' History of the Persian Wars every year. Ok, not every year: this year I am on sabbatical, but of the past fifteen years, I have read it a good twelve times. We are about to change the syllabus for our freshman humanities program at the college where I teach, but Herodotus is still on it, so it is safe to bet I will be teaching and reading it for many years to come.

As an orthodox Jew, I have also been reading each year a book that is new to our revised syllabus: the Megillas Esther. Starting next fall in our humanities course, right after we read Herodotus' account of why the small but heroic Greeks were able to take down the mighty Persians, we will turn to the Persian city of Persepolis, the Cyrus Cylinder, and the books of Esther and Ezra. According to Rabbi Yehuda Landy, we'd probably want to look at the ancient city of Susa as well.

Rabbi Landy is the author of the recently released Purim and the Persian Empire. In it, Rabbi Landy makes extensive connections between archeological finds in the Middle East and the Megillas Esther. Although archeology is always an interpretative "science," Rabbi Landy takes a now mainstream approach and argues that King Achashverosh was Xerxes (I) and that the story of Purim took place at his palace at Shushan (Susa).

Rabbi Landy's magnificent volume is sure to delight Jewish readers of almost any age and educational background. My favorite page was the plan of the palace on page 26 which connects each room to the line that references it in the Megillah; my children (ages 2 and 4) loved the full-page color photographs of the glazed bricks featuring members of the royal guard. They also loved the photos of the excavated jewelry and golden drinking cups. When we finished looking at the book and talking about the story of Esther, they asked to go through it "again" and kept picking it up and asking about it over the course of the weekend. They found the Persian writing (page 41) particularly funny.

I also loved the book: it opened my eyes onto a whole new view of the book of Esther and that curious king Achashveros. In Herodotus' Histories, Xerxes comes across as a rather crazy despot, famous for having ordered the Hellespont River to be lashed three-hundred times for disobedience. Placing Xerxes in the context of the book of Esther makes for a more nuanced and interesting view luxuries that "corrupted" and softened the Persian Empire. It also made me look forward to listening to the Megillah this year with new ears and eyes.