By, Bernard Josephs
1 min read
By, Bernard Josephs
It was an unlikely setting for a Jewish cemetery and the group, there to attend a rededication ceremony, was also out of the ordinary.
Among those gathered at the event in Cape Verde, an archipelago of islands 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, were high ranking Americans, Europeans and Moroccans, including a representative of King Mohammed VI, a major benefactor of the project.
Four cemeteries are almost all that is left of a community of Sephardic Jews who settled in Cape Verde in the late 19th century, when it was a Portuguese colony. They arrived following the abolition of the inquisition in Portugal and the signing of a commercial treaty between Portugal and Britain.
Individuals with surnames such Benros, Cohen, Levy and Wahnon immigrated to the islands from Morocco searching for greater economic stability. Many passed first through Gibraltar, where they obtained British citizenship.
