Things that Matter: The Polished Jewel in the Crumbling Crown
Two weeks ago, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, a refreshing and inspiring celebration took place in the historic core of Bridgetown, reminiscent of an elegant ceremony in the same place in 1833. The Tabor Foundation (Barbados) and the Synagogue Redevelopment Project hosted an Official Opening and Hand Over of the restored and embellished Synagogue Block. The project completes the 34-year-old saga of the renaissance of a group of the most historically, architecturally, archeologically and socio-culturally important buildings in Bridgetown and in Barbados.
As most Barbadians should now know, the Portuguese/Brazilian/Dutch Jewish emigrants to Barbados in the mid-17th century played a huge role in the industrial development of Barbados. Coming from Brazil, where they were the leaders in the development of the sugar industry, they brought the technology of the Dutch windmill and the “ingenio” as Richard Ligon, in his famous book of 1657, described the boiling house for the processing of the cane juice in to sugar. With the help of their skills and the forced labour of our African ancestors, Barbadian planters and their English landowners became rich in less than 20 years.
The early Jews built their synagogue by 1654, the date of the first map identifying it, and they lived largely nearby, especially in Swan Street (named after John Swan, the surveyor, but more commonly known for a long time as Jew Street). Some, like the Brandons, owned plantations (hence the name Brandon’s Beach). The synagogue was largely destroyed in 1831, but rebuilt on the same footprint, and re-consecrated in an elegant and colourful ceremony on March 19, 1833.
While many Jews emigrated in the 19th century, many, such as the Massiahs (Messiahs), the Mayers (Myers), the Daniels and the Barrows (Barruch), anglicised their names and became Christians, integrating with the Christian community of all colours and social classes. But by 1929, Mr. Edmund Baeza, apparently the last remaining practising Jew, exercised the authority vested in him to sell the synagogue and send the records to London for archiving.
It was the announcement in the press in August 1981 that the government had bought the synagogue and was planning to demolish it, along with Codd’s House next door (where the Emancipation Bill was proclaimed in 1838) to build a new Supreme Court, that started me on my personal preservation mission. Fortunately the “new” local Jewish community led by Sir Paul Altman, came to the rescue of the synagogue, and Prime Minister Tom Adams agreed to allow them to take it over, restore it, and have it vested in the Barbados National Trust. And the rest is history – achieved through the vision and stick-with-it-ness of Sir Paul and his team, and the magnificent generosity of Mr. Michael Tabor.
Following the remarkably pure restoration and rededication of the synagogue in 1987 and the return of worship there, the Jewish community constructed a museum in the old warehouse / former school-house building on the corner of the plot. And great excitement followed in 2008 when American archaeologist Michael Stoner, working with Dr. Karl Watson, discovered in the forecourt a Mikvah, the ritual Jewish bath, fed by pure spring water. This was really a most unexpected and remarkable archeological find.
The restoration of the entire block has been planned for some ten years or more. It takes in not only the charming, much photographed artisan’s workshops opposite Yearwood and Boyce, but the old Fire Station and Weights and Measures building, and the site of Codd’s House, while permitting extension of the cemetery. The work also discovered a Quaker grave site.
The old Fire Station complex has been beautifully restored to provide an exciting combination of café, museum and art gallery. The artisan’s workshops, where a famous shoemaker once plied his craft and made me a pair of Greek sandals back in 1969, are superbly restored for craftsmen to re-occupy them and provide genuine local craft. The site of Codd’s House is marked by a splendid Emancipation Monument – a rotunda with coral stone benches and a plaque nearby. And apart from well designed “greening” of the area there is an attractive new Social Hall – where “modern meets historical”!
This magnificent restoration project and the generosity of the Tabor Foundation gives us our first real hope for our UNESCO site, after six years of inaction. It is the core of historic Bridgetown. Within a stone’s throw of the intersection of James, Lucas and Coleridge Street are half a dozen other historic sites. It would have been wonderful if the Preservation Trust’s goal of restoring the Carnegie Public Library and the Old Supreme Court to create a modern, high tech Library and Cultural Information complex, like so many brand-new libraries all over the world, to catalyse the development of a modern Barbados and modern scholarship, but for reasons too complex for this column, four years of hard work have not succeeded. And how we weep when we come face to face with the Empire Theatre, the Old Eye Hospital, Culloden Farm, Block A, Savannah Lodge, and other sad treasures.
As Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Richard Sealy said last week at the launch of the book Barbados Heritage in Pictures, Barbados has been blessed with an outstanding number of heritage sites, noting that he was not aware of another piece of real estate on this planet as small as Barbados where you will find as much in terms of historic assets. It is up to us to recognise, preserve and restore them and enjoy and benefit from them in every way.
Meanwhile, congratulations and thanks to the fabulously generous Tabor Foundation, and to Sir Paul Altman and his committee of Joseph Steinbok, Geoff Ramsey and Justin Oran. Perhaps this magnificent Jewel (pun intended) will wake up government and creative private developers and business people to do something about our derelict dozen historic treasures, with the billions of dollars in our commercial banks!
(Professor Fraser is Past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. Website: profhenryfraser.com)