The new SNN is up early, what with Brian finally staying in one place for a change.

Tom Paine continues his streak and interviews a member of the British Parliament about the new EU constitution that is being pushed forward even though it’s been voted down in several nations which, uh, was supposed to mean that the EU was pretty much over. Funny, that.

Doug’s got a segment, but I’m taking a break from last week’s exhausting hosting duties.

Oldest - Mikve Israel in Curacao

In the Caribbean, Curacao is home to the oldest synagogue - Mikve Israel - in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere; it was founded in 1651.

Second oldest (?) (Though not in continuous use) - Synagogue of Bridgetown, Barbados

The first synagogue on the site was built about 1651 by Jews from Recife, Brazil, fleeing Portuguese lands to English territories during the Inquisition. The original building was destroyed in a hurricane in 1831, and rebuilt two years later. (Curacao’s synagogue, built in the 1660’s, is the oldest continually operating synagogue in the hemisphere.) The Bridgetown synagogue, deconsecrated early in the century, was seized by the Barbados Government about five years ago and scheduled for demolition. But through the tenacity of the island’s tiny Jewish community, it is now a Barbados National Trust property and is undergoing a $1 million restoration. The building, a short walk from the main shopping district, is to be rededicated as a synagogue when the restoration is finished by next winter. It will remain a National Trust property.Today, the building’s exterior, with its balustraded roofline, lancet-shaped windows and thick walls with rounded corners, appears much as it did in the 1830’s, the prosperous days of Barbados’s Jewish community, which led the island’s sugar industry.

Third oldest - St. Thomas Synagogue Virgin Islands

The third oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, this gracious building has a sand floor. This signifies the time during the Spanish Inquisition when practicing Judaism was punishable by death. Jews would worship in cellars with sand on the floors to absorb the sound.

Oldest synagogue - non-continuous use: Kahal Zur Israel, Recife Brazil.

Flanked by bustling cafes in downtown Recife on Brazil’s northeastern coast is a little-known treasure of Jewish history in the New World - the oldest synagogue in the Americas.Sephardic Jews built the two-story Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue before 1641 - most likely in 1636 - when they enjoyed religious freedom under the Dutch, who ruled part of the northeast region from 1630 to 1654 to control sugar production.

The Mikve Israel Congregation in Curacao, a Dutch Antilles island in the Carribean, was considered by some to have been the first congregation in the Americas. But it was founded only in 1651, also by Sephardic Jews from Holland.

Oldest synagogue in North America - Touro Synagogue, Newport Rhode Island

For over two centuries, the small synagogue standing on top of a hill on a quiet street in the New England seaport community of Newport, R.I., has occupied a unique place in American history — not only as a part of the American Jewish experience but also as a symbol of religious freedom for all Americans. It is her “that the right of the individual freely and without governmental restraint to follow the dictate of his own conscience in religious worship could be exercised without danger to the state”

UPDATE: Life at full volume visited Mikve Israel and has an account as well as a link to a set of photos of the Shul.

Well it turns out that Larry and I visited the oldest, Mikvé Israel-Emanuel, while we were on our honeymoon in Curaçao.We were there in June of 1992 and it was absolutely gorgeous.After a bit of digging I found a roll from our trip and I’ll share a few of the pictures we took of the synagogue and the Jewish Cultural Museum. First up is a picture of the organ and some of the chandeliers inside the sanctuary.

It was beautiful inside the building. My pictures really don’t do it justice, the dark mahogany wood, the bright sunlight streaming in and the white paint conspired to confound my film. But I did get a few good shots and if you click through the picture it will lead you to the picture set. I don’t remember much, other than the building being very cool and airy inside.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

But it’s just the “cycle of violence”: Hizbullah ‘100% certain’ Israel killed Mugniyah. Watch the news media label any terrorist attack by Hizbullah as a “revenge” attack for Israel’s killing the man responsible for hundreds of murders and who knows how many terror attacks.

Hizbullah’s deputy secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem said Saturday that the Lebanese terror group had “100% solid evidence” that Israel was behind the death of the “martyr” Imad Mugniyah in a car blast in Damascus on February 12, according to Iran’s Press TV.

Uh-huh. The “solid evidence” is probably the confessions of the Palestinians they arrested shortly after the death of the terrorist, then tortured into confessing. In any event: No way this ends well.

Okay, I actually don’t have problems with this: Ehud Barak is considering easing some restrictions in the West Bank, and they seem reasonable.

The possible gestures include the removal of at least one roadblock in the West Bank, a VIP route, a roadblock-bypass in the West Bank for Palestinian businesspeople, and a joint industrial zone in the village of Tarqumiya in eastern Hebron.

Oh, wait, yes, I do have problems with this: The Palestinians are still trying to murder Israelis in the West Bank, every single day. Why is it that restrictions on their movement should be removed again? Because they’ve stopped trying to murder Israelis in terror attacks? No, they haven’t.

Yeah, like we haven’t heard this before: Report: Israel ready for long-term truce in Gaza. Okay, let’s start a pool: How long before Hamas says there will be no truce because Israel won’t accede to all of its demands? I say less than 24 hours.

John Tierney writes about Bad Baby Names and the effect they might have on a well adjusted individual by citing that famous psychologist, Johnny Cash.

During his 1969 concert at San Quentin prison, Johnny Cash proposed a paradigm shift in the field of developmental psychology. He used “A Boy Named Sue” to present two hypotheses:1. A child with an awful name might grow up to be a relatively normal adult.

2. The parent who inflicted the name does not deserve to be executed.

I immediately welcomed the Boy Named Sue paradigm, although I realized that I might be biased by my middle name (Marion). Cash and his ambiguously named male collaborator, the lyricist Shel Silverstein, could offer only anecdotal evidence against decades of research suggesting that children with weird names were destined for places like San Quentin.

This problem is probably less of an issue now than it was back in the 60’s, as now Americans who have foreign roots, regularly use traditional names. Orthodox Jews (and sometimes not so Orthodox Jews) are more inclined to use Hebrew names now, too, as a consequence of this greater tolerance.

(For example, using a neat function at the Social Security website, I found out that the name Moshe was the 840th most popular name in 1977 but in 2006 was the 662nd. Moshe did peak in 2003 at 598 and has dropped a bit since then. Another interesting notes is that in 1986, the year that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein died, Moshe surged to 646 - and was 603 in 1987.)

Still it’s not really non-English names that Tierney’s writing about, but unusual names like:

By scouring census records from 1790 to 1930, Mr. Sherrod and Mr. Rayback discovered Garage Empty, Hysteria Johnson, King Arthur, Infinity Hubbard, Please Cope, Major Slaughter, Helen Troy, several Satans and a host of colleagues to the famed Ima Hogg (including Ima Pigg, Ima Muskrat, Ima Nut and Ima Hooker).The authors also interviewed adults today who had survived names like Candy Stohr, Cash Guy, Mary Christmas, River Jordan and Rasp Berry. All of them, even Happy Day, seemed untraumatized.

The impetus for this discussion, Tierney’s middle name, “Marion.” He’s apparently still traumatized :-) by the playground taunts he had to endure:

Not too much ribbing? That surprised me, because I had vivid memories of playground serenades to my middle name: “Marion . . . Madam Librarian!” (My tormentors didn’t care that the “Music Man” librarian spelled her name with an “a.”) But after I looked at experiments in the post-Sue era by revisionists like Kenneth Steele and Wayne Hensley, it seemed names weren’t so important after all.

Of course the other approach he could have taken would have been to point out that no one messed with Marion Robert Morrison.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.