Gravestone of Rachel Pereira

1721

Tombstone with inscription in Hebrew and Portuguese above floral motifs and engraving of hand with an ax reaching out of cloud to chop down tree.
Rachel Soares Pereira, who died in 1721 at the age of twenty-four, was married to Isaac Pereira. Floral motifs decorate the top of her gravestone, while the bottom panel contains a relief of a hand with an ax, reaching out of a cloud, to chop down a tree. This sort of symbolism was common on Jewish gravestones when someone died young. The Pereiras were members of a Sephardic Jewish community that originated with refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. By the time Rachel died, Jews made up 18 percent of Jamaica’s population.

Credits

Photo by Laura Leibman. Courtesy of the Jewish Atlantic World Database.

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

Engage with this Source

You may also like

Papercut featuring Hebrew text, menorah in center, and crown at top.
Tooltip info icon

Paper Cut—Shiviti Sign

Paper cuts have been a tradition of Jewish folk art, with the earliest record of one dating to the fourteenth century. Given the widespread availability of paper in Europe by the mid-nineteenth…
View Source
Print engraving of man in head covering pointing to open book with one hand and gesturing with the other, with Dutch and French text underneath.
Tooltip info icon

Portrait of Nathan of Gaza

Nathan of Gaza (also known as Nathan Benjamin ben Elisha Ḥayim ha-Levi Ashkenazi) was born in Jerusalem and moved to Gaza in around 1663. The son of a respected religious scholar, he became a scholar…
View Source