BY LARRY LUXNER Miami Herald March 21, 2004

PETIONVILLE, Haiti – At the once-elegant El Rancho Hotel in the hills above
Port-au-Prince, aggressive young men peddle exotic African sculptures next to
the taxi stand, and colorful Haitian paintings decorate the reception area.

Yet it’s hard not to notice the black, wrought-iron menorah in the middle of
the lobby.

”My father was Jewish,” manager Elizabeth Silvera explains as she sips
coffee in the hotel’s near-empty restaurant.

Like many members of Haiti’s mulatto elite, Silvera — a practicing Catholic
– proudly claims ties to Judaism in a country dominated by Catholicism and
Vodou beliefs.

Haiti has no more than 50 Jews out of a total population of 8.5 million. Most
of the Jews who did live here fled to the United States, Panama and elsewhere
in recent years, in the face of crushing poverty and worsening violence.

”The country is very poor and there’s no business here, so the Jews don’t
stay long,” said David Ades, an intellectual who works in real estate and
writes political articles for Le Nouvelliste, a daily newspaper in Port-au-Prince.

Ades, 71, is a Sephardic Jew whose father came from Syria and his mother from
Egypt. He recently returned to Haiti after more than 20 years in Brooklyn.

”After my divorce, I figured the best thing for me was to go back to my
roots,” said Ades, whose two sons still live in New York. “I was always part of
the community, but I never had a Jewish education.”

Not much is known about Haiti’s Jewish history except that Luis de Torres,
the interpreter for Christopher Columbus, in 1492 was the first Jew to set foot
in Haiti. The first Jewish immigrants came from Brazil in the 17th century,
after Haiti was conquered by the French. These marranos (Jews who feigned
conversion to Christianity but secretly practiced Judaism) were all murdered or
expelled — along with the rest of the white population — during the slave revolt
of Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1804.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a synagogue in Jeremie, a city
along Haiti’s southern peninsula that was home to many mulatto families of
Jewish origin. There are also vague historical references to Jewish tombstones in
the port cities of Cap Haitien and Jacmel.

Gaston Michel, a local tourism official in Jacmel who claims Jewish roots,
says “the Jews in Haiti had to hide their Judaism. You couldn’t go to school if
you weren’t Catholic.”

Yet by the end of the 19th century, Sephardic Jews began arriving from
Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. In 1937, Haitian officials — like their counterparts in
the neighboring Dominican Republic — began issuing passports to Eastern
European Jews fleeing the Nazis. Many of those grateful Ashkenazim stayed until the
late 1950s.

Gilbert Bigio, the community’s de facto leader, says that at one time, as
many as 300 Jews lived in Haiti.

”Every Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, our house was completely full,”
recalled Bigio, noting that, until recently, all religious ceremonies were at his
home. But attendance for the High Holidays has gradually dwindled, along with
Haiti’s Jewish population. “The last Jewish wedding here was my daughter’s,
eight years ago, and the last brit mila [circumcision] was that of my son, 30
years ago.”

Bigio, 68, lives in a big, beautiful house in Petionville, one of the few
upscale neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. Behind the well-guarded house is a
luxurious swimming pool and a gazebo for outdoor parties.

Like most of the other Jews who remain in Haiti, Bigio is considered
extremely wealthy in a country where 50 percent of the population is illiterate and 76
percent of children under 5 are underweight or suffer from stunted growth.

”I don’t think there’s resentment against people who are rich here,” says
the retired businessman, who speaks English, French and Haitian Creole. “If
you know how to manage success, people admire you instead of hate you.”

Other prominent Jewish families include the Weiners, who are involved in
coffee exports, and the Salzmanns, who fled Austria right before the Holocaust and
remain in Port-au-Prince. These and other families helped build Haiti’s
modern infrastructure and stayed on during the brutal Duvalier dictatorship, which
ended in 1986.

”Haiti wasn’t always a poor country,” said Bigio. “When Haiti had three or
four million people, everything was beautiful. If most of the Jews left, it’s
because they were hoping to live in a developed country, where their children
could marry among themselves.”

A case in point is Bigio’s wife Monique, who wasn’t born Jewish — though she
converted to Judaism long ago with the help of a visiting rabbi from Miami.

And while he isn’t a religious man, Bigio is especially proud of the Sefer
Torah he keeps in his study — the only Torah in all of Haiti.

”My uncle came from Aleppo, Syria, in 1896, and my father 20 years later,
during World War I,” he said. “They were escaping the Ottoman Empire, and at
that time, there was a French law created by the Justice Ministry that would
give French citizenship to the minorities in this region of the world.”

The family prospered in the export of cotton, cacao and a valuable wood known
as campeche.

”Most of the Jewish families in Haiti were in the textile and retail
businesses,” he said. “We’re also in industry and trading. We have a small steel
mill, we distribute edible oils, and we work a little in banking.”

Bigio is also the honorary consul of Israel in Haiti, which explains the
enormous Israeli flag flying in front of his house — as well as his bulletproof
Mercedes SUV.

A few Israelis live in Haiti, including noted photographer Daniel Kedar,
whose wife, Maryse Pénette, is the country’s former tourism minister. There are
also a few Jews scattered among the staff of the U.S. and French embassies in
Port-au-Prince. But no active synagogue exists in the capital city — home to
nearly all the country’s Jews — or anywhere else in Haiti.

Asked if he’s ever experienced anti-Semitism in Haiti, Bigio laughed.

”On the contrary, the Haitians have a lot of respect for the Jews, and a lot
of admiration for Israel,” he said, pointing out that Haiti voted for the
United Nations partition of Palestine in 1947, which created Israel.

Bigio declined to discuss politics. ”Our principle, which we respect daily,
is to not mix in Haitian politics,” he explained. “Even after three
generations, we are considered foreigners.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2004 and is filed under history.