Jewish snowbirds longing to escape the brusque winter cold now have another reason to visit the balmy Caribbean island paradise of S. Martin: This month marked the grand opening of the Dutch protectorate’s first permanent synagogue since the 18th century.
Held inside the modest 1,200 square foot office space that once held a church, the Jan. 3 celebration drew about 250 people to the Simpson Bay Yacht Club location.
“It was an historic moment,” pronounced Rabbi Mendel Zarchi, the Puerto Rico-based director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Caribbean. “You could sense the excitement and the people’s tremendous Jewish pride.”
Zarchi, along with Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, were instrumental in raising funds for the new house of worship, which is being run by Rabbi Moshe and Sara Chanowitz.
The Chanowitzes arrived on the island in 2009, finding a scattered Jewish community in a place where its forebears first sought refuge during the Spanish Inquisition and cemented their presence during the 16th and 17th centuries.
“When we arrived here a year and half ago, there were Jewish people, but not communal infrastructure,” Moshe Chanowitz recalled of the island’s 300 full-time Jewish residents (the population swells to about 1,000 during the busy tourist season). “They would get together for holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but collectively wanted much more.”
Remnants of the community’s history remain in S. Martin, primarily in ruins of a small synagogue on the shopping thoroughfare of Front Street. Abandoned in 1781, it was later destroyed by a hurricane. Recently, a Jewish cemetery was rediscovered behind a Radio Shack electronics store.
For locals, the new home of the S. Martin Chabad Center signals a resurgence of cultural interest among the island’s remaining and newly-arrived Jews.
Moshe Hakimi, an Israeli businessman who moved to the island in 1993, credits the center and synagogue with providing a gathering spot for people who might otherwise be tempted by the paradise’s vast offerings in the way nightlife and tourist attractions.
“For me, it’s wonderful because I have a place to pray,” explained Hakimi. “It’s a special place for Jews to come together so they won’t be detached from Judaism. Having [the synagogue] gives people a continuous connection to Judaism in a place where it would be very easy to lose their identity.”
For his part, Chanowitz said that he was surprised by how quickly Jewish life reasserted itself.
“We started out in a small apartment with Friday night dinner,” he related. “Then we added a women’s circle and a Hebrew school. Last we year, 10 kids enrolled; then, 120 people attended Yom Kippur services.”
When the time came to expand, the Chanowitzes rented the Simpson Bay space.
“It was just meant to be,” says Chanowitz. “It’s the perfect spot for a synagogue.”
Hakimi’s fiancée, Madeleine Gard, originally from Long Beach, Calif., called the synagogue’s presence “very unifying.”
“I have a really close connection to Chabad,” she said. “People are amazed at how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. And now that we have a shul to call our own it’s very inspiring. Finally, we have a place where all of us belong.”
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