page_title: Sint Eustatius
section_title: The synagogue and the cemetery
hierarchical_section_title: Sint Eustatius / History / Jewish population / The synagogue and the cemetery
caption_attribution_description: English: Stabilize walls of 1737 synagogue. This is a photo of a monument in the Dutch Caribbean on the island Sint Eustatius identified by the ID U25
context_page_description: Sint Eustatius, also known locally as Statia, is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality of the Netherlands.
  The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands. Sint Eustatius is immediately to the northwest of Saint Kitts, and to the southeast of Saba. The regional capital is Oranjestad.
  The island has an area of 21 square kilometres. Travellers to the island by air arrive through F. D. Roosevelt Airport.
  Formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, Sint Eustatius became a special municipality of the Netherlands on 10 October 2010. Together with Bonaire and Saba it forms the BES islands.
  The name of the island, "Sint Eustatius", is the Dutch name for Saint Eustace, a legendary Christian martyr, known in Spanish as San Eustaquio and in Portuguese as Santo Eustáquio or Santo Eustácio.
context_section_description: From about 1815, when there was no longer a viable Jewish community using and maintaining the synagogue on St. Eustatius, it gradually fell into ruin.
  The synagogue building, known as Honen Dalim, (He who is charitable to the Poor) was constructed in 1737. Permission for building the synagogue came from the Dutch West India Company, additional funding came from the Jewish community on Curaçao. Permission was conditional on the fact that the Jewish house of worship would be sited where "the exercise of their (Jewish) religious duties would not molest those of the Gentiles". The building is located off a small lane called Synagogue Path, away from the main street. The synagogue attested to the wealth of the Jews of St. Eustatius and their influence on the island.
  In 2001 its walls were restored as part of the Historic Core Restoration Project, although there are no known images showing what the synagogue looked like when still in use, so that archeological research is attempting to restore the structure to the best estimate of its former condition. The grounds include a Jewish ritual bath (mikveh) and an oven used on Passover.
  A restored and respectfully maintained Jewish cemetery is located adjacent to the Old Church Cemetery, at the top of Oranjestad, Sint Eustatius.
caption: The restored and stabilized walls of the 1737 synagogue
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