By Jerry Klinger
The most important synagogue in America is not located in the United States. Thirteen hundred miles, East-South-East from Miami, Honen Dolim (She who is Merciful to the Poor) stands on the tiny former Dutch Caribbean Island of St. Eustatius. Statia (St. Eustatius) is remote, difficult to get to and central to the American victory at Yorktown. Statia’s Jews paid a very heavy price for America’s victory.
“They (the Jews of St. Eustatius, Caribbean Antilles) cannot too soon be taken care of – they are notorious in the cause of America and France.”
British Admiral George Brydges Rodney, 1781
Jews surprisingly want to believe the exaggerated story of Haym Salomon financing the American Revolution. Few Members of the Tribe know the true story, how the Jews of St. Eustatius saved the American Revolution.
February, 1781, 236 years ago, a British Battle fleet, 15 ships of the line with over 1,000 guns followed by support vessels transporting 3,000 battle seasoned troops, attacked St. Eustatius. Neutral Dutch St. Eustatius had been funneling arms and supplies to the Americans for years. Neutral or not, the British had had enough.
Defending St. Eustatius was Fort Oranje. It projected its own power with its four guns and 45 soldiers.
It was not much of a contest.
Dutch dignity demanded the commander of Fort Oranje fire a gun in defiance. He did and promptly surrendered to the invading British forces. It was over. No point in bloodshed, there was nothing the Island or its people could do except surrender.
The British possessed the Island and took 130 ships in the harbor. The treasure was not just in the captured shipping but in the engorged warehouses lining the harbor for nearly a mile. Every trading item imaginable, from threads, to foodstuffs, to naval supplies, fell to the British. Even greater booty was taken, incredible supplies of war materials intended for the American Revolutionary Forces.
The Island clearly was rich. The British took what they wished. They remained cautious despoiling the merchants of strong enemy powers such as the French and the Spanish. The British knew that they conquered Statia today and tomorrow the French could take an English Island. The British understood what they could do to the French merchants of Statia today; the French could do to them tomorrow. They were greedy, but careful.
There was one large group of very prosperous merchants on the Island British Admiral Rodney knew could not do a thing to him, no matter what he did to them, the Jews. The Jews were citizens of nowhere. They had no army, no navy to defend them. No one would cry more than a moment for the Jews.
Rodney hated Jews with an anti-Semite’s special venom. The very first merchants Rodney rounded up, then robbed, with especially harsh treatment, were the Jews of Statia.
He was not wrong in his assessment. The Jews of St. Eustatius, who built the magnificent two storied brick synagogue, were indeed wealthy. Rodney rounded up the heads of the families, all the men, imprisoning them, stripping them of their clothing, their homes, household goods, businesses, ships, searching for Jewish treasure.
Under British law, a percentage of whatever Rodney captured went to him. The rest went to the crown. Rodney acted with malice and greed and glee.
The Jews were locked up in a waterfront warehouse. They were packed, like cattle for days, no food, no water.
Rodney ordered the Jewish graveyard dug up, coffins ripped from the ground, pried open, searched for buried Jewish gold.
After days or torment, Rodney’s pockets were bulging with Jewish wealth. He ordered the Jews loaded on ships and taken away to places their women and children stranded, alone on Statia, did not know.
What was the crime of the Jews, aside from being Jews? The crime the Jews had committed was obvious to Rodney. The Jews were major factors supplying the American Revolutionary Forces with War Materials. It was the Jews, with their international trading connections to Holland, France and Europe, who were dangerous. The Jews were supporters of America
Admiral George Brydges Rodney was not a wealthy man. He had huge gambling debts and a family to purchase a future for. He needed money. He was a man who recognized opportunity.
Rodney’s orders were to destroy Statia as a military supply center for the Americans. He fulfilled his orders immediately. His orders continued, keep an eye on the powerful French fleet in the Caribbean.
Rodney knew if he devoted large amounts of his resources to the French he would have to separate from Statia. Statia was a fat pocket book for Rodney. His greed had been piqued by the Jews. No one was going to help the Jews. Rodney calculated what would happen if he stayed in St. Eustatius. He calculated what would happen if he continue robbing every ship that entered its waters for months. Rodney realized he would become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
Greed, avarice and arrogance gripped Rodney. He decided to ignore his orders to follow the French fleet. He would become rich. He reasoned his faster fleet could catch the French anytime. He would stay for months in St. Eustatius lining his pockets. Doing what he did to the Jews showed him the way.
Spring 1781, the French fleet escaped northward. General Cornwallis had retreated to the Virginia Peninsula.
Cornwallis holed up in a small village named Yorktown. He awaited desperately needed reinforcements and supplies. He looked down the York River, out toward the Atlantic, searching for British ships coming from New York. They never came.
For a tantalizing three months, the French Navy, not the British, were the most powerful in the North Atlantic. The French Caribbean Fleet had slipped away joining with another French Fleet coming south. By the time Rodney realized what had happened, it was too late. He sent as strong a relief fleet north as he could. Rodney no longer was a powerful naval presence. He had divided his forces. Earlier he sent half his fleet to England, guarding the treasure he had stolen. Ironically, Rodney’s treasure fleet was attacked near the English Channel by the French. He lost everything.
The English were no match for the French in the American North Atlantic either. Off the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, at the Battle of the Capes, September, 5, 1781, the British fleet was defeated.
There would be no help for Cornwallis. At his back, hemming him into the shoreline was the American army eager for the kill. Cornwallis was done. The French Fleet in front of him, the American army in back, he had no hope of resupply or assistance. Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and the Americans.
The British were defeated.
Cornwallis had been defeated but it was Rodney who lost America due to antisemitism and greed. The greed was unleashed by his hatred of the Jews when Rodney understood he could rob and steal at will. His delay in St. Eustatius cost the British the American empire.
What became of the Jews? The Jews were taken and stranded mostly on St. Kitts. Nevis, a British Island was nearby. It had a large Jewish population that could help their coreligionists. St. Kitts had none. Rodney chose St. Kitts. For months the Jews languished in desperate poverty. Slowly, after the British finally left Statia, they trickled back home to try to rebuild their lives. The beautiful synagogue still stood but its soul had been broken. Statia and Statia’s Jews never recovered from the disaster. The Island, once known as the Golden Rock, was now just a rock with a large volcano to be bypassed. The Gold was gone.
With little economic prospects, the Jews began leaving, searching, wandering, to find new homes, as they had for millennia. Many of the Jews of St. Eustatius moved to an emerging economic center 130 miles away, the Danish Island of St. Thomas. 1796, the Jews of St. Thomas founded the Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas. 1833, the Jewish community built its house of worship. The synagogue functions today as a Jewish center and a house of worship on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. It is the oldest Jewish house of worship, in continuous use, of the United States. Honen Dolim, on St. Eustatius, fell into disrepair.
1917, the United States purchased St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix from the Danes. St. Thomas has had a proud and wonderful century as part of the United States. Centennial celebrations are being planned for 2017. It is the Jewish community of St. Thomas who extend that proud link to the American Revolution.
The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation is in contact with the St. Thomas Historical Preservation Commission exploring ways to tell St. Thomas’ Jewish story together.
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Jerry Klinger is President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.