The early Jewish colonists in Dutch Brazil, Barbados, Essequibo and Surinam were pioneers in the cultivation of sugar cane and laid the foundation for the subsequent agro industry of those countries. They did not succeed in developing agriculture on Curaçao. The foregoing should not surprise anyone as Curaçao’s climatic conditions are simply not suitable for agriculture due to lack of rain water, etc. 

What they did establish, however, was Curaçao’s unique situation for international trading and shipping, especially with the Spanish Main and the islands of the Caribbean. They devoted all their resources and their far-flung network of familial relations to these ends. Commerce and shipping flourished and, in only a few decades, Curaçao became the Caribbean center for much of the trading between the mother countries of Europe and their colonies in the Americas.

These commercial activities called for urbanization and so the trek from the fields to the walled city of Willemstad, popularly known as PUNDA (The Point) began. As early as 1660 there is evidence of a Jew, Jeosuah Henriquez, buying a house in Willemstad. Others soon followed. According to historical records, much of the present Heerenstraat was built up by this new class of Jewish merchants and ship owners.

At least three streets in Willemstad attested to their presence: The Jodenstraat (Jews’ Street), presumably the present day Windstraat, the Joden Kerk Straat (Jewish Church Street), which became the Kerkstraat and then the Hanchi di Snoa in honor of the Snoa’s 250th anniversary in 1982, and the Hanchi di Baño (Papiamento for “Street of the Bath”), in Dutch the Kuiperstraat, supposedly owing its name to the presence of the ritual bath (MIKVAH) in a house adjacent to the Synagogue. To this day, one of the houses on the Heerenstraat still bears a Hebrew date in its gable, while another has the inscription BEIT LEVI in Hebrew letters.

All the while, the Jewish population on Curaçao continued to increase through the influx of new immigrants from Holland, Portugal, Bayonne (France) and even from some of the other Caribbean islands. This called for ever larger houses of worship. It is remarkable that in the short span of only fifty years, the Jewish community here established no less than six Synagogues! The original one of 1651, in the fields, was replaced by a larger one in 1681. At about the same time, those residing within the walled city- though all belonging to the same congregation  MIKVÉ ISRAEL- consecrated their first city Synagogue in 1674, apparently timed to coincide with the arrival of the first rabbi (Chacham) to Curaçao, Josiau Pardo of Amsterdam. By 1690 this one too, had to be replaced by a larger one, only to be succeeded in six years’ time by still another one.

Then by 1703, thanks to a sizeable legacy from Abraham and Sara da Costa, a spacious house was bought by the PARNASSIM near the northeastern corner of the walled city. They had the house demolished and built a Synagogue in its stead, the predecessor to our present building on the same site. To raise the necessary funds for this new building, the PARNASSIM sold the honors of purchasing the four corner stones to the highest bidders, and had various members donate parts of the furnishings, equipment and decorations. Chacham Eliau Lopez consecrated the new Synagogue (referred to in the archives as the “Old Synagogue”) on SHAVUOT, 1703.

Two of the large brass chandeliers in the present Synagogue, two silver TORAH crowns, several TORAH scrolls, and the center section of the mahogany HEYCHAL (Holy Ark), belonged to this Synagogue of 1703.

A year later the MAHAMAD purchased a comfortable house on the Kuiperstraat to serve as the home of Chacham Lopez de Fonseca, (who had succeeded Chacham Pardo) and of his successors thereafter. There is a strong indication that this is the building now housing the Jewish Cultural Historical Museum.

Inasmuch as from the start, education played such an important role in the life of the early Jewish settlers, MEDRASIM (schools) were built as early as 1701, against the eastern façade of the Synagogue, across from the old city walls (on the site of the present Columbusstraat).

By 1729, the Jewish population of Curaçao, then numbering about one half of the white population of the Island, had grown so large that the 1703 Synagogue could no longer seat all. A campaign was started to collect funds for building a truly large house of worship. It was to stand on the same site as the then existing Synagogue, which consequently had to be torn down in 1730. While construction was going on, services were held in the homes of Eliau Jeudah Leao and Ishac de Marchena.

Thus began the building of the present edifice (CGC).
 
   
 

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