Nidhe Israel Synagogue and Museum
Synagogue founded in 1654 with a museum, cemetery and rediscovered mikvah in central Bridgetown.
Nidhe Israel stands on Synagogue Lane in central Bridgetown, founded in 1654 by Sephardic Jews who came from Recife in Brazil after the Portuguese reconquest and brought sugar-refining knowledge with them. The first building was wrecked in the hurricane of 1831 and rebuilt in 1833 in a plain Georgian Gothic manner. The congregation dwindled and the building was sold in 1929, but the Barbados National Trust and the Caribbean Jewish Congress began restoration in 1986 and services resumed.
The walled burial ground beside the synagogue holds tombstones from the seventeenth century onward, inscribed in Hebrew, English and Portuguese. A museum opened in 2008 in the restored rabbi's house sets out the community's history and its part in the sugar economy. Excavation the same year uncovered the mikvah, a spring-fed ritual bath of about 1654 that had been forgotten; it is now covered and shown to visitors. The district lies within Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison.
Highlights
- One of the oldest synagogue foundations in the Americas, dating from 1654
- Mikvah of about 1654, rediscovered by excavation in 2008
- Burial ground with Hebrew, English and Portuguese inscriptions
- Museum in the restored rabbi's house, opened in 2008
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