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On the small island of St. Eustatius, the Jewish community turned the tide of the American Revolution
Even if you’re someone with the most prolific knowledge of Jewish American history, you may not have heard of the small Caribbean island of St. Eustatius. But its Jewish community played an important role in the American Revolution.
The First Salute, a new exhibit at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, highlights the important role Jews across the Americas, especially in St, Eustatius, played in the American Revolution.
“When we talk about American Jewish history, most people’s brains immediately go to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the turn of the 20th century,” Josh Perelman, a senior advisor at the museum, said in an interview. “However, in the 18th century, there were Jewish communities in North America, in the Caribbean, in South America.”
“Until at least the 19th century, the Caribbean communities were the dominant communities,” Perelman said. “They were the more established, more wealthy, more prominent.”
Curaçao. The Hanukkah lamp (right) may be the only surviving Jewish ritual object from St. Eustatius. It was later brought to St. Thomas. Both are on loan to the Weitzman for ‘The First Salute.’ Courtesy of he Mikvé Israel – Emanuel Congregation in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Curaçao/the Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas
Jews began living in St. Eustatius in the 17th century, primarily those of Iberian descent who had escaped the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions that lasted from around the middle of the 15th century to the 19th century. As a Dutch colony, St. Eustatius provided Jews with more independence and freedom to worship than they would have had under other European powers. The population grew and, by 1739, had become large enough to establish a synagogue, Honen Dalim. By the Revolutionary period, approximately 30% of the European population in St. Eustatius were Jews.
Turning the Tide of the Revolution
One of the most prominent ports in the Atlantic at the time, St. Eustatius was also an ideal pace for Jewish merchants to conduct business. Jewish commercial networks developed across Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and North America bound together by a shared faith, ethnic background, and sometimes by marriage. The exhibit, which contains artifacts and documents from early Jewish communities in America, explains that, using this intricate network, Jewish merchants sent gunpowder and other military supplies to American forces, disguising the shipments as tea.
Historian Jonathan Sarna explained at the exhibit’s press opening that Jews were excited by the founding father’s commitments to religious freedom, which was inscribed in the Declaration of Independence.
Although few Americans are taught about the Caribbean’s role in their American Revolution, the area played a central role in the conflict. On Nov. 16, 1776, St. Eustatius became the first international entity to officially recognize the United States of America when the governor greeted the American warship Andrew Doria in the St. Eustatius harbor with a cannon salute.
“The Revolution was an international event that touched people all through the Atlantic world,” Perelman said. “Without the Caribbean, without allies in Europe, and without courage on this continent, the Revolution would have never succeeded.”
In 1781, the British Army captured St. Eustatius and almost instantly, the Jewish population was persecuted. Royal Navy Admiral George Rodney imprisoned more than 100 Jewish men, and, less than 24 hours later, deported nearly a third of them to St. Kitts, an island in the West Indies. He had the homes of Jewish merchants ransacked for personal possessions, and dug up fresh graves at the Jewish cemetery, thinking they contained treasure. The Jews who weren’t deported immigrated to other places and by the early 19th century, the island’s Jewish community had virtually disappeared.
Rodney was so distracted with his antisemitic campaign that his troops failed to stop a French ship headed to join George Washington at Yorktown, costing the British the famous battle that turned the tides of the war.
Keeping History Alive
The First Salute, which was timed to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary, contains numerous artifacts from across the Americas including a cannon from St. Eustatius (it’s unknown if it’s the one that fired the first salute), a spice box from South America, pottery shards from the site of Honen Dalim, and Rodney’s list of St. Eustatians and their belongings, including the Jews he stole from.
Current St. Eustatius governor Alida Francis and other officials from the island attended the exhibit’s press opening and participated in a 13 “cannon” salute with confetti alongside the historians and staff at the Weitzman involved with bringing the exhibit to life. A man playing the role of George Washington oversaw the ceremony.
“The Jewish community of St. Eustatius did not stand in the margins of history,” Francis said in her remarks. “They helped to move it.”
Raimie Ritchson, St. Eustatius’ State Heritage Inspector, who helped coordinate bringing artifacts to the exhibit, told me that the synagogue, which now exists only as a set of windowless walls, and the Jewish cemetery are routinely cleaned and cared for.
“We treat history as if it’s still part of our cultural heritage, even though the descendant community is no longer here,” Ritchson said, noting that the Jews in the exhibit are not just abstract historical figures. “They were all Statian-born, just like me today. So we do not see them as part of a global nomadic Jewish community, but we see them also as Statians.”
Perelman thinks there’s a lesson for everyone to learn from the exhibit, underscoring the risk the Jewish community took to support a fledgling rebellion.
“In the very complicated world we live in today, what would you risk?” Perelman said. “What choices might you make for an unknown but better world?”
The exhibit The First Salute will be at the Weitzman until April 2027.
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PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors
(JTA) — The president of PEN America resigned over the weekend in protest of a report on boycotts targeting Jewish and Israeli authors, part of yet another round of internal division over Israel at the literary free-speech institution.
Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-American novelist and Bard College professor, told The Atlantic he was stepping down because he believed the PEN report, “A Silent Moratorium,” failed to defend the free-speech rights of participants in the movement to boycott Israel.
“It’s the First Amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,” Mengestu told the publication. “PEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.”
The author did not respond to multiple Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment, but in an Instagram post Monday alluded to an interest in creating a new organization to rival the prominent nonprofit, which defends the free expression rights other writers.
In response to an interview request, PEN sent a statement to JTA saying it was “grateful” for Mengestu’s leadership and would “respect” his decision. The statement also alluded to PEN’s own past turmoil: “We tell hard stories, in politically challenging moments, about writers from a range of perspectives, even when it’s uncomfortable for us given our own recent history.”
In its report, published on its blog, PEN described “Jewish and Israeli writers who feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.” Interview subjects include several Israel critics, as well as literary agents who assert that they face more difficulties signing Jewish authors after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and amid the subsequent war in Gaza. The report also repeatedly cited a JTA report about a 2024 viral list of “Zionist” authors to boycott.
Among other details, PEN’s report revealed that Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and public radio host Ira Glass had cancelled a planned live event in Australia over fears of threats and protest.
“This silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all,” according to the report.
In addition to the report, PEN also altered its institutional policy toward cultural boycotts, which the organization has long opposed. Although its report on Jewish authors asserted that boycotts “threaten the free expression rights” of their targets, the revised guidelines say that the group will also defend the right of writers to participate in boycotts.
Mengestu’s resignation comes at a perilous moment for Jews facing cultural boycotts, both within the standard-bearers of PEN and elsewhere. PEN’s Jewish former longtime CEO stepped down in 2024 following months of blowback from rank-and-file authors who felt the organization was insufficiently critical of Israel and caused PEN to cancel a festival for global authors.
Since the leadership change, PEN leadership has published and retracted a condemnation of a boycott effort trained at an Israeli comedian and also published a report cataloguing Israel’s “cultural destruction in Gaza.”
Mengestu had assumed the role of board president in 2025. But PEN’s report about Jewish and Israeli writers on Thursday, he wrote, “makes clear that [change] will not happen.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply troubled” by Mengestu’s resignation Monday. “Freedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,” the organization tweeted, saying that the author’s decision to leave PEN over his objections to the report on Jewish authors “sends a chilling message.” Jewish authors also objected.
“Imagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,” the author David Zweig wrote on X, musing whether Mengestu would object to boycotting authors from his birth country: “Ethiopia doesn’t exactly have a good human rights record.”
In response to The Atlantic’s story that quoted sources from inside PEN who were critical of his resignation, Mengestu wrote a lengthy Instagram post Monday in which he stated, “This piece is about trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” criticized past PEN reports critical of the BDS movement, and added, “What PEN America fails to understand is that boycott is a form of dialogue.”
He announced his intention to “help make something better,” receiving affirmative comments from notable authors including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Angela Flournoy, Jewish pro-Palestinian novelist Jess Row and Pulitzer Prize-winner Benjamin Moser, author of a forthcoming history of Jewish anti-Zionism.
Other Jewish authors on the left were among those defending Mengestu’s decision to step down.
“Dinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,” author Sarah Schulman wrote on Facebook. Calling PEN’s blog about Jews “one of those fake anti-semitism pieces,” Schulman added, “If PEN wants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel/Zionism business.”
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Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide
(JTA) — The Church of England’s legislative body voted Monday to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.
The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The vote on Monday does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.
Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked Synod members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.
“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.
Afterwards, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”
“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she said.
She added, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She said the church remained opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
The Synod debate followed Mullally’s visit to the West Bank in June, where she met Palestinian Christian communities in Birzeit. During the visit she said, “I will use my role as Archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve.”
The debate marks the ascendance of Israel-related issues in another major church, after the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV angered Jewish groups soon after being elected last year by endorsing an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
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Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown
(JTA) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in against antisemitism after officials in his Indiana town say a costly fire may have been caused by arson to an Israeli flag displayed on a local barn.
The alleged arson broke out early Friday morning, damaging a historic home in Zionsville, Indiana, where Pence lives, and causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, according to the Zionsville Police Department.
Zionsville Mayor John Stehr said during a press conference on Friday that officials believed the fire began when an individual set fire to an Israeli flag that had been displayed outside the building alongside an American flag. The town later announced that the FBI had joined the investigation and that officials were examining whether the arson “may have been motivated by bias” but said no determination had been made.
“Absolutely despicable,” Pence tweeted on Sunday. “There can be no tolerance in America for Antisemitism or political acts of violence, and it is heartbreaking to see in our adopted hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. We thank God no one was hurt and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement.”
Pence has long cast himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, including after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and has also repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism in the conservative movement and beyond.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks also condemned the alleged arson in a post on X Saturday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated. Not in Zionsville. Not in Indiana. Not anywhere,” Banks wrote. “Thank you to the federal, state, and local officials working to bring the perpetrators of this despicable arson attack to justice.”
On Sunday, the Jewish community in central Indiana hosted a rally condemning the alleged arson attack, chanting, “We will stand up,” according to local outlet Fox 59. While Zionsville does not have a large Jewish community of its own, other suburbs of Indianapolis have significant Jewish populations, and Zionsville is also the longtime home of a Reform movement summer camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute, which is in session now.
“The founding fathers founded a country where we have the ability to resolve differences among each other; we don’t do it by firebombing homes,” rally organizer David Schiller told Fox 59. “It’s inexcusable and unacceptable.”
The Zionsville Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the status of the investigation on Monday.
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