#3923: Brief history of Jews in Haiti : Grey comments

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Racine125@aol.com

Bob Corbett does us yet another service:

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/ethnic/jewshistory.htm>>

This is SUPER!

I think most people know that there was a Jewish community in Jacmel, which 
was expelled at some point, I am not sure when.  Folk memory presents this 
fact as the "jwif eran" of Carnival - men dress like Orthodox Jews (with some 
fanciful departures) and march through the street under the guidance of a 
Rabbi figure with a big white false beard, and pursued by a man in Haitian 
military khaki.  They sing mournful songs as they go along.

My partner Houngan Yabofe's last name is David, and he and his family are one 
of the less impoverished of black majority-class Haitian families in Jacmel.  
They own land, they own businesses.  Looking at him and at his family, the 
members of which have a very strong and rather unusual family resemblance, I 
have always thought they must be descendants of Jews!  Honestly!  So one day 
I asked him what he knew about his family history, and he told me that the 
earliest inhabitants of his family land were "white peple with soft black 
hair".

Hmmmmm....
[Corbett interjects:  if, once at the bottom of that post you click
on the red "ethnic" line you will find a couple of other posts about
Jews in Haiti]

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra", 
     Good is rare - Haitian Proverb

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