Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Barbados
Barbados: the Nidhe Israel Synagogue of 1654, relations with "Israel" since the 1960s, Israeli technical cooperation, and recognition of Palestine in 2024
Barbados has about 100 Jews and the Nidhe Israel Synagogue in Bridgetown, which the World Jewish Congress (WJC) describes as the oldest in the Western Hemisphere.[1] On 19 April 2024 its government announced that it recognised the State of Palestine, while its foreign minister said that relations with "Israel" had been "an exceptionally good one".[2]
Jewish community and religious life
History and demography
According to the WJC, Spanish and Portuguese conversos began settling in Barbados a year after British colonisation in 1627, and the Jewish community of Bridgetown and its synagogue were founded in 1654. Jews who had taken part in the Dutch colonisation of Recife helped establish the island's sugar industry, and Barbados was the first British territory where Jews obtained full political rights. A discriminatory higher tax on Jews was lifted in 1702. After a hurricane in 1831 many emigrated to the United States; by 1925 no Jews remained and the synagogue was deconsecrated and sold. From the 1930s about 40 Jewish families fleeing Europe settled on the island, the first being Moses Altman. The Nidhe Israel Synagogue was rededicated in 1987, a museum opened beside it in 2008, and in 2011 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison.[1]
Communal organisations
The WJC's Barbados affiliate is the Barbados Jewish Community Council. The Bridgetown Synagogue 1654 project, chaired by Sir Paul Altman, restored the synagogue, its mikveh and graveyard and built the museum. Services are held at Nidhe Israel in the winter season and at the smaller Shaare Tzedek synagogue for the rest of the year; both are Conservative.[1]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
The Israeli foreign ministry's 2011 list of missions records relations with Barbados as established in January 1966, with "Israel" represented by a non-resident ambassador based at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem, with an honorary consul in Bridgetown.[3] The WJC says "Israel" has a non-resident ambassador and an honorary consul-general in Bridgetown; its embassy to the Caribbean is at 800 Second Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10017.[1]
Announcing the recognition of Palestine on 19 April 2024, the foreign minister, Kerrie Symmonds, gave a different date for relations with "Israel": "Since August 29 of 1967, Barbados has had a formal recognition of the State of Israel". He said Barbados had "benefitted tremendously through technical cooperation with the State of Israel", including in food security, agriculture and water, and that recognition of Palestine did not affect the relationship. He also said that Barbados, with CARICOM, had expressed "its unconditional disappointment and dissatisfaction about the humanitarian crisis and the disproportionality of the Israeli response".[2] Barbados later established diplomatic relations with the State of Palestine at its UN mission in New York, and Symmonds said that after the recognitions by Barbados, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago "all CARICOM countries now recognise Palestine".[4]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Israeli exports to Barbados worth $0.9 million in 2025 (2024: $0.1 million) and no recorded imports.[5]
Political interference
UN voting
According to the WJC, Barbados voted against the 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution, and in 2012 it abstained, with the Bahamas and Haiti, on the vote on a Palestinian state.[1] Barbados voted in favour of the September 2025 General Assembly resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[6]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Antigua and Barbuda
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Bahamas
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Dominica
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Grenada
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Jamaica
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Saint Lucia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Trinidad and Tobago
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Cuba
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Dominican Republic
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Haiti
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 World Jewish Congress, Community in Barbados worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sheena Forde-Craigg, Barbados Officially Recognises Palestine As A State Barbados Government Information Service, 19 April 2024, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ Barbados Formally Establishes Diplomatic Relations With Palestine Caribbean Today, 2024, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).