Stories of history, heritage, and living community from the sand-covered floors of the Snoa to the stone tombstones of Beth Hayim, and everywhere in between.

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There is sand on the floor of the Snoa.

 

It has been there for centuries, and depending on who you ask, the reasons are different. Some say it recalls the line in the Torah where God promises Abraham that his offspring will be as plentiful as the sand on the seashores. Others point to the Inquisition, when our ancestors covered the floors to muffle the sound of prayer, worship that had to be hidden to survive. Snoa historian Ron Gomes Casseres offers a simpler explanation: it made cleaning the candle wax off the floor much easier. Whatever you choose to believe, the sand remains. It is a tradition that continues at Mikvé Israel-Emanuel to this day.

 

The Snoa was built of local coral limestone, and for nearly 300 years it has stood as home both for those who never left, and for those of us who keep finding our way back.

 

Sand and stone. The traditions we carry forward, and the place we carry them from.

 

I am a 13th-generation member of this congregation. I came to this work not as a scholar or a historian, but as someone who kept returning to Curaçao and felt, each time, that something irreplaceable was at risk of being lost. JCCPF exists because I couldn't sit quietly with that feeling anymore.

 

In this blog I will share what I'm learning, what I'm seeing, and what moves me. You'll also hear from guest contributors, voices from inside the community and far beyond it, people who have walked into the Snoa and felt something shift, researchers who have spent years tracing what these families carried across oceans.

 

The stories that belong here are too important to let fade away. 

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-Susan

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