“This splendidly illustrated and presented volume combines scholarship with a reader-friendly approach. The author marries the results of recent underwater archaeological expeditions with her own researches on the tombstones and genealogy of the Jews of Port Royal to write a fresh account of that city, its Jews and rabbis.”

Dr. Henry J. Cohn, Emeritus Reader in History, University of Warwick, U.K

Very little physical or written material exists regarding the Jews that inhabited the notorious town of Port Royal during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Yet hidden away, in the bushes behind Spanish Town Road in St Andrew, Jamaica is an ancient graveyard with 350 graves – forgotten, unprotected, and neglected, with at least 50 per cent of their marble tombstones missing.

Just four miles to the north-west of Port Royal, Hunt’s Bay became the place chosen by the Port Royal Jews to bury their dead. Access was gained by rowing four miles across the Kingston Harbour to the Hunt’s Bay Cemetery just 100 yards from the sea. The funeral party would proceed to the graveside along a narrow path, now obliterated.

The tombstones were found to have inscriptions in Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish, which for the first time have been fully translated, revealing important information concerning those that lay buried beneath the soil.

This book is dedicated to their memory.

Cover photograph: JONO DAVID