Built in 1739 and an emblem of the island’s Jewish heritage, the Honen Dalim synagogue is one of the oldest in the Western Hemisphere.
The two-storey ruin offers a rare glimpse into the lives of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews who arrived on Sint Eustatius around the early 1700s, with the island’s status as a key trading epicentre at the time said to have drawn the diaspora.
Built from yellow bricks transported from the Netherlands in 1739, the structure tied together Sint Eustatius’ historical roots. However, by the 1800s, the vast Jewish community had significantly diminished, leaving the temple abandoned.
Today, visitors can gaze upon the remnants of this once bustling communal site. For example, the ruin still has the boreholes that supported the beams of the ladies’ gallery. Elsewhere, travellers can follow in the footsteps of those before them by ascending the remains of a stone staircase leading to the gallery.
For those who wish to find out more about the history of the island’s Jewish community, the Jewish cemetery, located in the town of Oranjestad, holds a small collection of gravestones dating between 1739 and 1824. The burial site tells the sombre story of the Jewish populations that tried to avoid the wrath of British troops, making the cemetery an important reminder of the island’s past.
