Curaçao Cemetery, Gravestone Inscriptions

The Jewish Community of Curaçao

Early 18th Century

Italics indicate that the text was written in Hebrew, not Portuguese.

Ester de Sousa Mendes (d. 1707)

Here lies the very honest Esther de Sousa
Beneath this tombstone buried
The honorable wife of Abraham de Sousa Mendes
Here from the living separated
Awaiting the miraculous Resurrection
Of all the mortals
Desiring wonders from God and His compassion
To live an infinity of eternities
Passed away on 19 Adar I, 5467.
May her soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.

Abraham de Sousa Mendes (d. 1709)

Of the blessed
Abraham De Sousa
Mendes who passed away
On the Day of Simḥat Torah
23 of Tishri, in the year 5470
May his soul enjoy the Glory
May his soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.
Abraham de Sousa Mendes buried
Lies here beneath this gravestone
By the will of God and His command
That he came to accompany his beloved wife
Hoping in Him to be resurrected
And to enjoy the miraculous life
In the company of Hanoch and Elias
To live for eternal and lengthy days

Abraham Hiskiyahu Touro (d. 1714)

Here lies the prematurely departed virtuous young man
Abraham Hiskiyahu Touro, son of Isaac and Leah Touro
And in his early demise
Death misaimed its shot so thoroughly
That it gave him old life in a young death
For though he died young he lived old enough to be wise,
And such a person does not die too soon,
For in dying, he lives.
Passed away on 12 Elul of 5474
Which corresponds to 23 August 1714
May his soul enjoy the glory
May his soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.

Translated by
David
Herman
.

Credits

Isaac Samuel Emmanuel, Precious Stones of the Jews of Curaçao: Curaçaon Jewry, 1656–1957 (New York: Bloch Publishing Co., 1957), pp. 206, 207, 213, 216, 222, 227.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Creator Bio

The Jewish Community of Curaçao

The first Jews arrived in Curaçao as early as 1651, not long after the Dutch captured it from Spain. The Sephardic community, founded under the name Mikve Israel, was the largest Jewish community in the Americas until 1825. Upon their arrival, the Jewish settlers built a synagogue, which was quickly enlarged and replaced to make room for the growing community. 

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