Gravestone of Rachel Pereira
1721
Image
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.
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