RESOURCES
Please consider the following as guidance to help you research the Jewish history of Barbados. This page is for reference and is not meant to be comprehensive.
Here in Barbados the best physical presentation of the history of the Jews in Barbados is to be found at the Museum, www.synagoguehistoricdistrict.com. Hours are 9 am – 4 pm Monday through Friday. To arrange a guided tour from a member of the Barbados Jewish Community, please Book a Guided Tour.
To learn more about the current Jewish community’s events and programs, visit the Barbados Jewish Community Facebook Page. or our website Calendar
Additional Information About the History of Jewish Barbados
Digital Resources
- Virtual History Tour of Barbados (Virtual Jewish Library)
- Jewish Atlantic World
- The Barbados Synagogue Restoration Project Records Digital Collection
Resources on the history of Ashkenazi Jews in Barbados
Kreindler, Simon. Peddlers All: Stories of the First Ashkenazi Jewish Settlers in Barbados. Toronto: Simon Kreindler, 2017. Website: www.peddlersall.com
Newman, Joanna Frances. “Nearly the New World: Refugees and the British West Indies, 1933-1945.,” 1998.
Foreign press, 1985-2015. Various articles about the Synagogue Restoration Project activities during the process of the site’s restoration process that also touch upon the life of the Barbados Jewish community during those years. These documents have been digitized as part of the Barbados Synagogue Restoration Project Digital Collection and can accessed here. (Click on “Thumbnails” (page 1 and 2) to see an overview or on “Page Images” or “Page Turner” to click through).
Resources on the history of Sephardic Jews in Barbados
Arbell, Mordechai. “Barbados.” In The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean: The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas. Jerusalem: Gefen, 2002.
Ben-Ur, Aviva. “The Rise of Jewish Merchants Capitalists in the Caribbean: The Triangulation of Barbados, Jamaica and Curaçao.” In A Sefardic Pepper-Pot in the Caribbean, edited by Michael Studenmund-Halévy. Barcelona: Tirocinio, 2016.
Bowden, Martyn. “Disasters, Revolutions, and Discrimination in an Era of Economic Depression 1766-1796: The World of the Sephardic Jews of Bridgetown, Barbados.” The Journal of the Barbados Museum & Historical SocietyLXII (December 2016).
———. “Houses, Inhabitants and Levies: Place of the Sephardic Jews of Bridgetown, Barbados, 1679-1729.” The Journal of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society LVII (December 2011).
———. “Levels of Discrimination and the Making of the Swan Street Jewish District in Bridgetown, 1725-1766.” The Journal of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society LXI (December 2015).
Gallery, Wyatt, Stanley Mirvis, and Jonathan D Sarna. “Barbados.” In Jewish Treasures of the Caribbean: The Legacy of Judaism in the New World, 2016.
Leibman, Laura Arnold, and Sam May. “Making Jews: Race, Gender, and Identity in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation.” Jewish American History 99, no. 1 (2015).
Miller, Derek. “‘A Medley of Contradictions’: The Jewish Diaspora in St Eustatius and Barbados.” Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects, January 1, 2013.
Schreuder, Yda. “A True Global Community: Sephardic Jews, the Sugar Trade, and Barbados in the Seventeenth Century.” The Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society L (December 2004).
Shilstone, E. M. Monumental Inscriptions in the Burial Ground of the Jewish Synagogue at Bridgetown, Barbados. Transcribed with an Introduction by E.M. Shilstone. Pp. xxxiii. 205. American Jewish Historical Society: New York, 1956.
Studenmund-Halévy, Michael. “More than Images: SefardiSpulchral Iconography in the Jewish Cemetery in Bridgetown, Barbados.” In A Sefardic Pepper-Pot in the Caribbean, edited by Michael Studenmund-Halévy. Barcelona: Tirocinio, 2016.
Watson, Karl. “Shifting Identities: Religion, Race, and Creolization among the Sephardi Jews of Barbados, 1654-1900.” In The Jews in the Caribbean, edited by Jane Gerber. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2014.
———. “The Sephardic Jews of Bridgetown.” In Beyond the Bridge: Lectures Commemorating Bridgetown’s 375th Anniversary, edited by Woodville Marshall and Pedro Welch. Barbados Museum & Historical Society and The Department of History and Philosophy, UWI, Cave Hill, 2005.