• Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 9, 2010 10:41 AM

Jamaica's tourism director, John Lynch, is putting together a package that includes stops at historic Jewish cemeteries, a visit to the island's synagogue and a traditional post-worship meal with Jewish families in an effort to attract new visitors to the island, Tamara Audi reports. Jamaica's Jewish history, Lynch says, has "been a well-kept secret" -- including a pirate named Moses Cohen Henriques.

Jews fleeing the Inquisition started arriving in Jamaica from Portugal and Spain in the 17th century. It had six synagogues and around 2,000 Jews by the end of the 19th century, but assimilation and emigration have taken their toll. Its sole, sand-floored synagogue now serves a community of about 200 people.

"It was a hub of Jewish commerce that had a triangular trade with colonial America and England," says Jane Gerber, director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "Jamaica was where they came to get kosher stuff."

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