On Burial, Boundaries and the Creolisation of the Surinamese Jewish Community

Abstract

A central theme in the history of the Surinamese Jews is the persistent tension between the creolisation of the local community and a continued belonging to the Jewish diaspora. This field of tension is manifested by the way community boundaries were created, negotiated and recreated throughout Surinamese Jewish history. The cemetery reflects this history of changing cultural identifications of the Surinamese Jews by its changing style of gravestones and by the various conflicts surrounding death, burial and cemetery space. Based on a study of the shifting position of ‘coloured Jews’ in the Surinamese Jewish community from the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century, as displayed both at the cemetery and in cemetery-related stories, I will argue that this transformation of cemetery space should be understood as a case in point of a creolising Surinamese Jewish community.