On Wednesday May 20th, Louis and I had lunch with Jacob Steinberg. Coincidentally, he shares the same last name and almost the same first name as the historical figure that is driving our project- I.N. Steinberg; or Yitzak Nachman Steinberg. Jacob insists that there is no relation between the head of the Freeland League and himself- I'm not so convinced! Jacob did point out one major difference -- he is a Zionist while I.N. was not. We contacted Jacob because when we started our research on Suriname we found out that he has been deeply involved with the very small Jewish community that still exists there and that he is based in Toronto (another uncanny coincidence). He was very kind and offered to connect us to the leaders of the Suriname Jewish community, Lily and Jules whom he says keep that community going. There are only about 150 Jews remaining there. At one time the Jews owned 40% of the sugar plantations. Yes, they were also slave owners - after all this was the 1700s.
Jacob related to us that a monument has been created to commemorate the Jews of Suriname that died in the Holocaust and that a dedication ceremony will take place in the fall of 2015. We are wondering if that would be a good time to make our first exploratory trip to find the places where we want to site our augments...
Imaginary Jewish Homelands is a collaborative digital art and humanities project that utilizes the cutting edge technology of virtual reality to image and imagine four proposed sites in modern times for a Jewish homeland around the globe.
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