Jr Joseph Bernard

Haiti's Jewish History Jr Joseph Bernard

Expelled from Spain in 1492 by the Alhambra Decree, the Sephardic Jews of the Iberic peninsula had to seek other havens. The discovery of the New World was a golden opportunity that led them to settle in Hispaniola. Although they contributed to the prosperity of Saint-Domingue, the French crown edited discriminative laws against the Jews of de Pearl of the Antilles. The French Revolution of 1789 was a major turning point for the status of the Jewish Nation of Saint-Domingue, but the slaves' revolt of 1791 forced it once again to move abroad for the sake of their lives. After 1804, other Jewish families from the surrounding Islands (Curacao, Jamaica, St Thomas) settled in the New Republic on Haiti, led by the vast trading network of the Jewish Nation in America. The Arab migration of the end of the 19th century revived the Jewish community of Haiti that was menaced of extinction by deculturation. During the Shoah, the Haitian government saved the lives of hundreds of Jews from Europe by granting them visas and even the Haitian nationality. So many historical ties between the Jewish people and Haiti, a country with no synagogue or Jewish town.