This is a prayer composed by David Hizkiahu Baruch Louzada (1750–1825) for Jewish Militiamen in Suriname mustered in the event of Maroon attacks. Contextualized by Eli Rosenblatt in “Prayer for Jewish Militiamen, Suriname, ca. 1805-1806,” chapter 35 of Jews Across the America: A Sourcebook, 1492–Present (2023), he also included a partial translation of the prayer and crucial historical context for understanding its existence. Rosenblatt writes,

One reason many members of Suriname’s Jewish community moved north from Jodensavanne to the main port of Paramaribo was the ongoing danger of Maroon attacks on the plantation town. Maroons were people of African descent who escaped enslavement on plantations and formed autonomous settlements in the interior. Suriname’s plantations were often sites of enslaved resistance from the seventeenth century onward, as Maroons returned to the plantations to attack their former enslavers, gather supplies, and liberate enslaved peoples. While the British had been able to end some of the violence in Jamaica by signing a 1740 treaty with that island’s Maroon community that recognized the Maroon’s freedom and paid them a yearly tribute, the British takeover of Suriname from 1799 to 1816 did not end violence in Suriname. This handwritten Hebrew supplicatory prayer was composed in Jodensavanne by David Hizkiahu Baruch Louzada (1750–1825) during the British takeover.

Written to be recited on the Sabbath, this prayer formed part of a new liturgy composed specifically to ask God for protection from raids and attacks by Maroons. The circumstances of this prayer are distinct because it was composed upon the revolt of three regiments of “coloured” soldiers serving alongside European mercenaries in a military outpost adjacent to the village of Jodensavanne, rather than in response to a threat from known “Boni” Maroons. These soldiers deserted the colonial militia, raided Jodensavanne, murdered a Jewish watchman, and fled eastward, joining existing Maroon settlements along the banks of the Marowijne River. The “Boni” Maroons whom they joined, known today as the Aluku, are one of the six independent Maroon tribes in Suriname and French Guiana. Some Maroon communities had kin ties to Jodensavanne and Jewish plantations: Paanza, for example, the matriarch of the Kasitu Sramaccan clan, was the daughter of Moses Nunez Henriquez, a Portuguese Jew. She had been captured in a Maroon raid on Joseph Castilho’s Kasitu Plantation.^[12] Richard Price, Alabi’s World (1990), p. 23.  Some Maroon communities acknowledged ties to Jews in Suriname or back to Africa; thus, one eighteenth-century explorer described four Djuka villages as “Jewish Maroons.”^[13] Aviva Ben-Ur and Rachel Frankel, Remnant Stones: The Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname (2012), p. 70.  Yet this prayer suggests that the Jodensavanne community perceived both the rebels and multiracial soldiers as ethnically Other.

This source is among the few early examples we have of original Hebrew liturgy produced in the Americas. It gives us a window into the ways that local conditions shaped the religious sensibilities of early American Jews. It is distinguished by its relation to slavery and revolt and for the fact that it does not ask any earthly government or monarch for protection, as was more common for Hebrew supplications during this period. It demonstrates that formerly enslaved people continued to raid and pose a danger to Suriname’s declining Jewish plantations well into the nineteenth century, after many of the major revolts had ceased.

This is the oldest example of a prayer for the well-being of Jewish soldiers I am currently aware of. (Earlier prayers may exist elsewhere. If you know, please leave a comment or contact us.) For the origin of the Jewish militias operating in Suriname, more can be found in Remnant Stones: The Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname (2012) by Aviva Ben-Ur and Rachel Frankel. Here from page 68, on “Jodensavanne as a Paramilitary Outpost”:

Because it existed on the frontier, on the borderland between colonial settlements and autonomous or outlaw non-white populations, Jodensavanne increasingly assumed the function of a paramilitary outpost, an informal garrison that, although not part of the colony’s professional armed forces, functioned similarly. To be sure, any plantation or village situated alongside the frontier, an extensive area that abutted virtually all riverine settlements, was similarly situated. But Jews, or at least so they claimed in a petition to Governor Van Sommelsdijck in 1684, tended to remain in place and defend their settlements against attacks, while other whites fled. In 1689, the Jewish militia (civil guard) helped defend the colony against a French attack, despite the fact that it was Sabbath.207 Defense carried out by private citizens was crucial to the colony’s survival. Suriname’s standing army was traditionally oriented toward fighting off external enemies. But in general, internal threats were dealt with by several regional militias manned by volunteer forces. These included four companies of whites, one company of free “mulattoes,” and another of free “negroes,” all stationed in Paramaribo, plus six to ten rural militias, one assigned to each region. The rural companies included a Jewish Division, in operation since at least 1671.

My transcription here is, for the most part, faithful to the text as I’ve been able to read it, with the exception of some comma-like punctuation. Unusual orthography and vocalization in the original manuscript has been retained rather than corrected. This includes the liberal use of the dagesh, and many applications of the segol where one might expect a tseré.

My English translation here expands up the abridged translation of Eli Rosenblatt, deviating in several places, mainly to keep the translation in line with my parsed phrasing of the prayer, but also elsewhere. Many thanks to Dr. Rosenblatt for bringing this prayer to our attention. An earlier translation of portions of this work were published in Publications of the American Historical Society no. 27 (1920), pp. 223-224.

In arranging what I believe to be the correct order of the text, I have set the text of page 9 before page 1. The two short mi sheberakh prayers on page 10 either preceded the prayer for militiamen or directly followed it. All the page images of the manuscript itself are located, here, where it is referred to under the title, “Prayer at the Time of Revolt of the Negroes, Probably in Surinam,” n.d., JJL.

Many thanks to Ari Adler in the Passages of Rite discussion group on Facebook, for helping to identify and reconstruct the missing text in the top left corner of the first page of the prayer (page 9 in its archived setting). —Aharon Varady

Source(s)

Mi Sheberakh for ḥolim and for sailors (Prayer, page 10 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Beginning of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 9 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Second page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 1 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Third page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 2 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Fourth page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 3 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Fifth page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 4 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Sixth page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 5 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Seventh page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 6 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Eighth page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 7 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

Ninth page of prayer for Jewish militiamen (Prayer, page 8 of “Prayer at the time of revolt of the Negroes, probably in Surinam” in the Jacques Judah Lyons papers, identifier: P-15, at the Center for Jewish History)

“Prayer for the Jewish Militiamen of Suriname, by David Hizkiahu Baruch Louzada (ca. 1806)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (translation)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer translator for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his translations, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot Naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also transcribes prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes for the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

David Hizkiahu Baruch Louzada

David Hizkiahu Baruch Louzada (1750–1825) was the the ḥazzan of Ḳ.Ḳ. Beraha VeSalom and keeper of the cemetery and its register in Jodensavanne, Suriname.

Works of related interest:

 

Bénédiction pour Napoléon | Blessing on the Festival of Napoleon Ⅰ, by Rabbi David Sinẓheim (15 August 1806)

מי שברך לחיילי צה״ל | Mi sheBerakh for the Welfare of Israel Defense Forces Soldiers, by Rabbi Shlomo Goren (1956); amended by Dr. Alex Sinclair (2012)

מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ | Mi sheBerakh for United States Military War Veterans, by Hinda Tzivia Eisen

Prayer for the Government [of the United States of America], by David Nunes Carvalho (Reformed Society of Israelites, Charleston, South Carolina, 1825)

ברכה לקהל | Blessing of the Congregation, translation by Rabbi David de Sola Pool

📖 The Jewish Home Prayer-Book: A Manual of Household Devotion (Committee of the Jewish Ministers’ Association, 1887)

מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ | Mi sheBerakh for Victims of Slavery, by Rabbi Joshua Boettiger (2009)

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