They headed into the unknown. They sought neither conquest nor riches.
Their objective was survival.
Throughout history, people have set off in search of new lands and new opportunities.
Like Christopher Columbus, some of them were explorers seeking discovery and fortune.
But there were those who made the journey because they had no choice.
That was the case with Esfardim. The Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century.
They needed to find places where they could rebuild their lives and practice their religion in freedom.
Some of them headed to the lands of the East.
But there were those who decided to brave the seas, seeking a new future in the new world.
We're set to sail in their wake and you're invited to join us.
I was near the Caribbean area and the area of the Guyanas.
When I served there, I met people that only they belonged to the Jewish nation of the Caribbean.
I did not know what this is. And I have been in university, I have studied history,
and still I did not know what does it mean, the Jewish nation of the Caribbean.
Israeli sailors and researchers will journey into this forgotten time
to rediscover the exploits of Jews trying to recreate their world.
Their voyage to the Americas carried them on waves of destiny.
We will cross the same seas, under the same skies, headed toward the same new horizons.
As we set sail on waves of destiny, we'll drop anchor at the places where Jews fleeing persecution in Europe
lay down roots and created the foundations for future prosperity.
Noted historian and diplomat Mordecai Arbel will guide us through this important yet little-known chapter in Jewish and world history.
What does it mean, the Jewish nation of the Caribbean?
They started explaining to me.
Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal, coming to the American continent
and settling in the area which was not Catholic, the area that belonged to the British, to the Dutch, to the Danish.
And sometimes they reached also French colonies.
It took me 30 years to complete this research and to publish my books and my research.
Many of the Jews forced off the Iberian Peninsula first sought refuge elsewhere in Europe.
In the Netherlands, Spain's enemy, they found a high degree of religious tolerance, establishing synagogues and engaging in commerce.
But this was only the first stepping stone on a journey that would take them much further in search of new opportunities.
Jews from Portugal and Spain came to Amsterdam and then to Dutch Brazil in 1630.
When Dutch Brazil was reoccupied by Portuguese, they had to flee and they fled all over the Caribbean.
So you have the main settlements which were Guyana, Suriname, Tobago, Barbados, Martinique, Guadalupe, Nevis, St. Martin or St. Martin, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Haiti, Jamaica, Curacao.
And then after liberation from Spain, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.
We will call at the ports where they first dropped anchor, seeking to escape persecution and carve out new lives in some of the few places where Jews were welcome in the 16th and 17th centuries.
We'll discover the ingenuity that was the key to their survival.
They were needed because they were specialized in sugar production and then later on in vanilla and cocoa.
We'll visit places like Suriname where Jews established hundreds of sugar plantations, giving them biblical Hebrew names, where they built synagogues and created communities, earning the region a unique nickname, the Jewish Savannah.
We'll see how these Jewish pioneers moved ahead with the times, adapting themselves to changing circumstances, moving from agriculture into international commerce, catering to a world market hungry for their expertise.
An island like St. Eustatius, which had a majority of Jews living there, this was a real hub and it was called also the supermarket of the Caribbean.
The settlers made one mistake, they started aiding the American revolutionaries against Britain.
The British punished the Jewish settlers by banishing them from their island.
Centuries later, the Americans thanked them for being the first place in the world to recognize the flag of the United States.
These and other stories from the Caribbean are unfamiliar even to most contemporary Jews.
It's our aim, sailing on those same waves of destiny, to bring those days back to life.
My family is one of those families that were exposed from Spain, 1492, and then in the Caribbean area, I met actually my cousins that were also expelled from there, the first Jews in the Americas.
We're set to unfurl our sails, taking to the seas to re-experience one of history's hidden chapters.
I'm a sailor, a filmmaker and a Jew. Since childhood, I was dreaming to sail to the same seas where the Jews have been sailing 500 years ago and to take you along with me.
Sail with us into history on waves of destiny.
