On This Day

Spanish Town, formerly St. Jago de la Vega, supported one of colonial Jamaica’s principal Portuguese Jewish congregations. Its synagogue, burial institutions, officers, and charitable arrangements served families engaged in commerce, agriculture, government supply, and regional trade. The community operated within a plantation society built upon enslaved labor, and Jewish residents participated in that economy to varying degrees. As Kingston grew, Spanish Town’s Jewish population declined and its congregation eventually disappeared. Surviving records and tombstones reveal an inland Sephardic community connected with Atlantic migration while developing institutions distinct from Jamaica’s larger port congregations.