A look inside the exhibit “Longing for Freedom. The World of Anne Frank” opening at the Jewish Museum Curacao. Photo: Anne Frank House

Part One of this article appeared here.

Mother Congregation of the Americas

With strong leaders, the Curacao Jewish community grew both spiritually and financially. By 1750, about 2,000 Jews lived on the island, likely more Jews than in all thirteen American colonies combined.

During the 1700s and 1800s, the rabbis encouraged the community to share their wealth with Jewish communities worldwide, especially in the Americas and the Land of Israel. The community gave generous donations to help build the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, the Shearith Israel Synagogue in New York, and shuls in Kingston, Jamaica, Charleston, and Philadelphia.

Until today, every Yom Kippur, the Touro Synagogue and Shearith Israel in New York say a prayer of thanks to Curacao for the help they gave over 200 years ago. Because of their generosity during this period, Curacao became known as the “Mother Congregation of the Americas.”

Signs of Assimilation

After 200 years of a strong Jewish community, things began to weaken. When Chacham Jacob Da Fonseca died in 1815, the community chose Jacob Hain de Abraham Curiel, a 60-year old merchant who was not knowledgeable of Jewish law, to replace him.

After some time, the community realized that his lack of knowledge was a problem, and they asked the Amsterdam community to send them a chazzan who would also serve as a temporary rabbi. Rabbi Jeosuah Piza, a student of Yeshivas Eitz Chaim, arrived in 1815. However, minor issues regarding things Rabbi Piza did (such as using a different wording to end kiddush) upset some in the community, and in December of 1818, Piza was honorably suspended from his position.

This suspension created a deep divide in the community, and a large group left. The separatists organized their own services and bought land to make their own cemetery. At the behest of the Machamad, which wanted to retain control over the community, the government once again became involved, trying to force the community to reunite, but the peace was very shaky.

The situation kept getting worse.

At the time, the Reform movement was spreading amongst German Jews in America, and the Curacao community, already weakened by strife, began to copy them. In 1864, one-third of the Jewish community broke away because they wanted to use an organ in shul on Shabbat. They built a new building that they called Temple Emanuel, and they established their own cemetery at Berg Altena.

Looking to cut his losses and appeal to the masses, the Chacham of Mikveh Yisroel, Rabbi Aron Mendes Chumaceiro, decided to make changes as well to liberalize the congregation.

Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia, a prominent and vocal fighter against Reform, strongly criticized these changes in his periodical “The Occident.” He wrote, “We deeply regret that the rabbi should have found himself compelled to yield to the introduction of instrumental music in the synagogue…and it is futile to have this work done by a non-Jew.”

By 1964, due to assimilation, intermarriage, and emigration, neither Mikveh Israel nor Emmanuel could gather a minyan. They decided to reunite as Mikveh Israel-Emmanuel.

Today, Mikveh Israel-Emanuel still holds 18 Torah Scrolls that are centuries old. They are kept in the beautiful shul, built with great devotion. However, the strong Torah community that once thrived here, rooted in Spanish-Portuguese tradition, is now gone.

The Ashkenazi Community

Ashkenazi Jews started coming to Curaçao in the 1920s and 30s. Many did not plan to settle there, but when their ships stopped in Curacao, some decided to stay. Most were poor and earned a living by selling goods in rural areas, often buying from the Sephardi Jews already on the island. Over time, they opened shops and later larger stores.

As the Ashkenazi Jews became more successful, they formed their own community called Shaarei Tzedek. In 2006, they dedicated a new shul with a stunning glass dome. Today, the shul follows Ashkenazi customs, but Sephardim also pray there. The Chabad of Curacao uses the shul for its services and programs.

No Visa Required: Escaping Lithuania for Curacao (Sort of)

In 1939, two-thirds of Poland had been conquered by Germany, and one-third was under the rule of the Soviet Union. For a brief period at the end of 1939 and in early 1940, Lithuania was a neutral country. Recognizing a window of opportunity, Reb Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, leader of European Jewry, sent urgent telegrams to the yeshivas he could make contact with in Soviet-controlled Poland, urging them to escape to Lithuania en masse, hoping they would be saved in that manner. They followed his directive. However, when the Soviets invaded Lithuania in June of 1940, the haven of Lithuania was no longer safe for Jews.

Nachum Zvi (Nathan) Gutwirth, originally from Holland, was a student at Telshe Yeshiva and he joined the yeshiva as it fled to Lithuania. After the invasion, he too was desperate to escape Soviet rule, yet he could not return to his native Holland, because the Nazis had already taken it over. Nachum Zvi remembered from his school years that the Dutch owned an island called Curacao, 60 miles north of Venezuela. He thought that, as a Dutch citizen, he might be able to travel there and find freedom.

To leave the Soviet Union, a person needed an exit visa from Russia, a transit visa through Japan or another country, and a final destination. Knowing he could only get the first two if he had a destination, Nachum Zvi wrote to the Dutch Ambassador in Riga to ask for a visa to Curacao. The Ambassador replied that he did not need a visa for Curacao, just permission from the island’s governor, and only the governor could give that.

After thinking it over, Nachum Zvi had an idea that would later save thousands, including the students and teachers of the famed Mir Yeshiva. He asked the Ambassador to write on his passport, “No Visa to Curacao required,” hoping this would help him get the Russian exit visa and the Japanese transit visa.

To his great joy, the Ambassador was amenable to that and wrote to Nachum Zvi that he could go to the Dutch honorary consul, Jan Zwartendyk, based in Kovno, to have the words written on his passport.

On July 24, Zwartendyk, who was an acquaintance of Nachum Zvi, wrote “No visa to Curacao required” on Nachum Zvi’s passport. (Interestingly, just two days before, on July 22nd, another Dutch native who was stranded in Lithuania, Peppy Lewin, had the same idea and received “Curacao visas” for herself and her husband.) When two of the teachers of the Mir Yeshiva, Rabbi Leib Malin and Reb Lazer Portnoy, heard about Nachum Zvi’s idea, they approached him and asked if he could get the statement stamped on the passports of the 300 members of the Mir Yeshiva. Assisted by five Mir students, Zwartendyk was more than happy to help.

With the Curacao “visas,” Nachum Zvi, the Mir Yeshiva, and about 2,000 others received transit visas from Chiune-Sempo Sugihara to travel through Japan. After also getting exit visas from Russia, they managed to escape Nazi and Soviet Europe.

The Curacao Connection

In a remarkable turn of history, Curacao, once called “The Mother Congregation of the Americas” and home to about 2,000 Jews at its peak, played a key role in saving Jews who escaped Europe with the 2,000 “Curacao” visas. Among the refugees, the Mir Yeshiva stood out, later rebuilding Jewish life and Torah institutions in America and Israel after the Holocaust.

Perhaps there is a spiritual connection between the Curacao community’s dedication to Jewish community and Jewish education, and the fact that it was the destination that enabled the Mir Yeshiva and hundreds of other Jews to escape the Holocaust and rebuild Jewish communities in America and Israel after the war.

Rabbi Menachem Levine is the CEO of JDBY-YTT, the largest Jewish school in the Midwest. He served as Rabbi of Congregation Am Echad in San Jose, CA, from 2007 to 2020. He is a popular speaker and writes for numerous publications on Torah, Jewish History, and Contemporary Jewish Topics. Rabbi Levine’s personal website is https://thinktorah.org A version of this article was originally published at Aish.