Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur (review)

Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur challenges traditional narratives of Jewish history, revealing that Jews in Suriname held significant corporate autonomy and power over an enslaved majority, defying conventional models of migration, emancipation, and acculturation. Unlike other early American Jewish communities, Surinamese Jews were predominantly poor, driven by poverty rather than religious tolerance or wealth-seeking. Ben-Ur's analysis of archival records, particularly from the National Archives of the Netherlands, demonstrates that autonomy in Suriname was not synonymous with liberty but often reinforced Portuguese ethnic supremacy and marginalized poorer Ashkenazim and Jews of color. The study also reexamines the concept of emancipation, arguing it was more a legal fiction than a meaningful transformation, as Surinamese Jewish leaders resisted legal parity with white Christians to retain their corporate autonomy.

(Ed.). (2021). Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur (review). AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies, 45(2), 461–464. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2021.0113