Jewish Pirates and the Caribbean
6/25/202644 min
The legend of Jewish pirates in the Caribbean is irresistible — and mostly fiction. This week, Schwab and Yael unpacks the myth, meet the one Jewish figure who comes closest to a real-life swashbuckler (spoiler: he never set foot in the Caribbean). They trace where Jews actually did build thriving communities in the Americas — setting the stage for our special two-part series on Jews in colonial and revolutionary America, just in time for the U.S.'s 250th birthday.
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For other podcasts from Unpacked, check out:
Soulful Jewish Living
Stars of David with Elon Gold
Unpacking Israeli History
Wondering Jews
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJonathan Schwab· Host0:00
You know who goes to a Jewish school in the Caribbean?
Yael Steiner· Host0:02
Alexander Hamilton.
Jonathan Schwab· Host0:05
Mm-hmm.
Yael Steiner· Host0:05
My name is Alexander Hamilton.
Jonathan Schwab· Host0:08
Yeah. Not mentioned in the play. [upbeat music] From Unpacked, this is Jewish History Nerds, the podcast where we nerd out on awesome stories in Jewish history. I'm Jonathan Schwab.
Yael Steiner· Host0:22
And I'm Yael Steiner, and we'd like to welcome you to our second episode in a special series on the Americas. Schwab, you led our first episode on the Americas with a fascinating tale about Jews in Recife, Brazil.
Jonathan Schwab· Host0:40
Mm-hmm.
Yael Steiner· Host0:40
And I think you have some follow-up.
Jonathan Schwab· Host0:43
Yes. Yeah, yeah. So where we left off was, for not the first time, Jews being expelled from their homes, in this case in Recife, Brazil, and sort of spread all throughout the Western Hemisphere, but really primarily through the Caribbean, and that's where we're gonna be talking about our story today. And it will take us to a lot more places. I wanna start off with a really interesting, colorful tale, and then we'll unpack it a little bit.
Yael Steiner· Host1:14
It's perfect.
Jonathan Schwab· Host1:14
September of 1628, in the Bay of Matanzas on the north coast of Cuba, a very large fleet of Dutch ships, or ships flying a Dutch flag, are closing