2013
October 2013
Sunday 6 October 2013
Sun 6 Oct, 3:30-5 pm. Society for Advancement of Judaism, 15 West 86th Street, New York, 10010. Michael Witkin, (212) 213-1002. The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism - [email][events]
Suriname is home to the oldest Jewish community in the Americas. The original settlers were descendants of Jews who escaped Portugal and Spain during the Inquisition. They fled to Brazil, but when the Dutch were defeated by the Portuguese in 1654, the Jews debarked for other places in the New World including New Amsterdam and Suriname. Today there are some 200 Jews remaining but, according to a local author, "shake a tree and Jew falls out…. Surinamese has Jewish blood" on account of all the Jewish plantation owners who had children with slave mistresses. Curacao-born filmmaker and choreographer, and a Jewish-Surinamese descendant herself, Gabri Christa, is working on a series of films that take place in and around historical buildings and sites connected