Mikvé Israel-Emanuel Curaçao, N.A.

CONSTRUCTION OF OUR “SNOA”

Located at the northeastern corner of the walled city of Willemstad, near the corner of the “Joden Kerk Straat” (Jewish Church Street) and “Agter de Muur” (Behind the Wall), close to the four-meter-high city wall, our Synagogue was squeezed in between several two or three-storied buildings. It was really not until the city walls had been demolished (1861-1865) and the adjacent buildings torn down (1893-1894), that our SNOA finally had the chance to show off the unique architectural style which makes it one of the most beautiful Synagogues in the Western Hemisphere.

Measuring approximately 24 meters in length, 18 meters in width and 15 meters in height, our SNOA strongly bears the stamp of local building traditions and workmanship.

The exterior walls are 70 centimeters thick. They are constructed of limestone rock and coral stone, filled with sea sand and plastered with lime mortar. The side walls are 8 meters high; the front and back walls are 15 meters high in the center (the highest gable).

Though the exteriors are dissimilar (the ESNOGA of Amsterdam has red brick walls, four roofs hidden behind a flat balustrade, and mullioned windows), the interior of our SNOA closely resembles its mother Synagogue. The three high vaulted ceilings, the Holy Ark (HEYCHAL) and the pulpit (TEBAH), the galleries, the benches and the illumination, all bear a marked resemblance to their counterparts in Amsterdam.

The Great Synagogue of United Congregation Talmud TORAH, our mother congregation in Amsterdam, was dedicated on the 10th of Menachem 5435, just 57 years before our own.

Some of our forefathers had undoubtedly been present for that consecration ceremony which had taken eight days, just as the Temple’s in Jerusalem. Certainly, many had worshipped and still maintained close family ties there. Like the tabernacle in the wilderness, the floor of our richly ornamented Synagogue was (and still is) covered with a thick carpet of fine white sand to remind us of our past: the MARRANOS in Portugal covered the floors of their clandestine Synagogues with sand to muffle the sound of their footsteps. Although the Jews of Curaçao have always enjoyed the broadest possible tolerance and freedom of worship, generation after generation has chosen to perpetuate this custom in our SNOA. In fact, until the end of the last century, part of that sand was imported from the Holy Land.

As in the construction of their 1703 Synagogue, the Curaçao MAHAMAD sold the honors of laying the first four corner stones of the 1732 building to the highest bidders: Mordechai Alvares Correa, Samuel de Casseres, Jacob Henriquez Marao and Manuel Levy. They also sold the honor of laying the foundation stones of the four center columns. These went to Daniel Aboab Cardoze, his wife Ribcah; to Abraham Aboab Cardoze and his wife Leah. These founders are remembered every year during special prayers recited in the Synagogue on PESACH.

The central columns which support

the roof beams are 8 meters high and almost 3 1/2 meters in circumference. Their core is made of limestone rock and sand, sheathed in a layer of yellow brick, and covered by a thin layer of lime mortar. Having removed the outer layer of lime mortar during the 1974 restoration, remnants of four wooden pegs (one in each compass direction) were uncovered at a height of two meters on each of the central pillars. These had apparently served as anchors for wall sconces in earlier times.Since several spare sconces did exist, three of these were re-attached to each pillar; the one facing center was left un-mounted as it would undoubtedly be struck by the RIMONIM of the TORAH scrolls during the processional. In their stead, the names of the Matriarchs of our people: Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah were attached in raised Hebrew letters to the columns, symbolizing the indispensable contribution of our women to the Synagogue.

Six smaller columns support the galleries. Although they are all 4 1/2 meters tall and 1 1/2 meters in circumference, only the composition of the four which support the lateral galleries is similar to the larger central pillars. The composition of the two columns supporting the organ is unknown, but one legend has it that they are ship’s masts covered by a veneer of cedar wood. While the shaft of all the columns is round, their base is square. The columns are topped by three-tiered, circular capitals to support the cross beams of the roof or balcony.

Although there is no way to prove the contrary, we believe that our Snoa’s windows were mullioned windows similar to Amsterdam’s. We believe that the original windows of our Synagogue were probably colonial style, glass-paned case windows, the two vertical halves opening to the inside. The unreachable second floor windows above the Heychal were opened by using an elaborate system of pulleys and chains.

On May 22, 1867, the Comision de Fabrica informed the Board that the Synagogue windows were in a deplorable condition and had to be replaced. The Commission recommended that the windows be changed to the shutter type to beautify the outside of the building and to make the building cooler.(Shutters became the vogue on Curaçao around the 1850s.)

On August 28, 1868, the DIRECTIVA reported that all of the windows had been replaced and that additional windows had been added. Unfortunately, it does not mention where! All the white painted, shutter windows were replaced during the restoration of 1974; this time by similar, fixed-jalousie type windows in a natural wood stain, also to enhance the outside of the building.

In its March 6, 1902 Minutes, the DIRECTIVA thanks Mr. Morris Cardoze Sr. for having so ably supervised the installation of the colored glass in the windows of the Synagogue.

It is possible that the fixed, blue triangular-glass panes which decorate the arches of our windows today, only date back some eighty years. If so, what was there before? An answer to this question can be found in the fact that the cement arches of all the ground floor windows are different from all (except one) of their counterparts in the galleries upstairs. Could our Snoa’s ground floor window casements have been square, as are Amsterdam’s, and only the gallery’s arched as in Amsterdam? Could the fanlights above our ground floor windows have been added later on, perhaps during the 1868 renovation when shutters were introduced? Perhaps the installation of the wooden shutters blocked too much of the light from the outside and created the need for an additional outside light source; thus the fanlights.

The chandeliers are hung from hooks passing through ten magnificently sculptured rosettes attached to the three ceilings of the Synagogue. These iron hooks are anchored by means of a wedge to beams running along the center of the attic floor above each ceiling. The rosettes of the center ceiling had to be re-positioned when their chandeliers were moved forward to make room for the western balcony, built to support the organ in 1866.

The ceilings of the sanctuary consist of mahogany planks 4 centimeters thick, 40 centimeters wide and approximately 3 meters long. Modeled after Amsterdam, our ceilings and balconies must originally have been their natural wood color. Father Euwens, in two of his histories of the Jews of Curaçao, states that the Board, in the year 1876, finally relented to complaints and pressure from the membership that the Synagogue was too somber and dark because of all the dark mahogany everywhere. So, they (the Board) had all the woodwork painted white ‘to brighten the interior.

One wonders nowadays, what the effect would have been like if the ceilings and balconies had been left in their rich original wooden color.

The roof of our SNOA is actually three roofs in one, a common architectural style found in many of the old town and plantation manor houses of Curaçao. Our Synagogue roof is covered with over 16,000 red clay roof tiles, supported on narrow wooden slats which are laid out in neat parallel rows. The framework of each of the three roof sections is constructed of heavy wooden cross and support beams. The center roof is slightly higher and wider than the other two, allowing for the difference in size of the lower laterals.

The floor of each of the three attics is made of thick wooden planks approximately 40 centimeters wide by 3 meters long, laid in the same direction as the ceiling planks directly underneath. From the cutaway view, one can clearly see that the floor of each attic is horizontal whereas the ceiling below is curved. There is a small window in the wall at each end of the attic.

There is also a “throughway” at the western end of each of the roofs facing the center – to allow one to crawl out of the attic onto the roof itself. Between each of the roofs, and at the two outside ends as well, there is an open rainwater gutter that sheds its overflow water into the downspouts which are concealed inside the pillars at the center and corners of the front and back façades of the building and out onto the courtyard below.

Little could our forefathers who erected this magnificent building, have imagined the changes that would be made to the interior and exterior of their SNOA in the centuries to come in order to accommodate the needs of future generations. (RDLM)

Punda

The Building Begins | The Dedication | The Galleries

The Eastern Façade | The Western Façade

Other Synagogues