Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

JTA — The oldest continually active Jewish congregation in the Americas? Hint: Check your margarita glass.

Congregation Mikve Israel Emmanuel in Curacao, home of the liqueur of the same name, holds the honor, having served the island’s Jewish community since roughly 1654.

The wheels of the community were put in motion by Jaoa d’Yllan, a Portuguese Jew by way of Amsterdam who petitioned the Dutch West India Company to send a group of settlers to the island. Most were Amsterdam Jews who had fled the Iberian Peninsula in the aftershocks of the Portuguese Inquisition. The synagogue was called “Mikve Israel,” meaning “the gathering of Israel,” for the aspiration that the Jewish settlers would redeem the island as a Dutch possession by making it a lucrative nexus of trade.

If Curacao’s first Jews were born European, they quickly acculturated as Caribbean. They joined Simon Bolivar’s fight for Venezuelan and Colombian independence, and they soon spoke the Portuguese creole Papiamentu as a lingua franca. Today, Mikve Israel plays host to a stream of Jewish tourists, but its own community is fragile: Jews number 350 on an island of 153,000. But Jews still play a role in manufacturing and trade, including the making of that key ingredient of your ice-cold marg.

We’ll drink to that.

» Buy the recipe book of Mikve-Israel’s sisterhood

» Set sail with these Jewish pirates

» Learn about the Ashkenazi Jews of Curacao

» Learn some the language called Papimentu

Leah Falk earned an MFA from the University of Michigan, and has written for Haaretz and The Los Angeles Review of Books in addition to the Forward.

"Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief"

You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.

And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.

That’s where you come in. Gifts of any size keep the Forward free and accessible to everyone and ensure we have the resources we need to power the Forward at this critical time for American Jews.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. That’s only possible thanks to the support of readers like you. Will you support our work today?

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$120 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT