When Rabbi Avromy Super couldn’t find a direct flight home to St. Lucia last October, he was disappointed. Usually, the Rabbi didn’t have trouble finding direct flights to St. Lucia, his home island where he had established a Chabad. This time, however, the only available flight was through Guyani, 600 miles out of his way.
Since St. Lucia was home to a very small Jewish community, Super was accustomed to keeping an eye out for Jews. So when he landed in Guyana’s capital city of Georgetown on his dreaded 24-hour stopover, he brushed off his exhaustion and got to work.
Almost immediately he found two Jews—one named Raphi, owner of a local riverside resort, and Alan, a Jew originally from Antwerp, Belgium, who had been living in Guyana for 13 years. Super met with both, and when it was finally time to catch his connecting flight, they vowed to stay in touch.
Six months later, with Passover fast approaching, Super began going through his list of Jews to send traditional, handmade round Shmurah matzah for the holiday. Along with the Jews of St. Lucia, Super has a Rolodex of Jews he’s met on his travels in the Caribbean with whom he remains in contact, including his new friends in Guyana.
The rabbi made travel plans to deliver the hand-made matzah, along with the joy of the holiday, in person.
At the same time, through his Jewish contacts in Guyana he’d become aware of at least a dozen Jews living there. One of them, however, the Jewish son of two former presidents of Guyana, he knew of on his own.
The Jagan family is all but royalty in Guyana. Cheddi Jagan, the patriarch of the family, founded the People’s Progressive Party in 1950, together with his wife, Janet (née Rosenberg). He served in the government, and then as president of Guyana, for a number of years. His work there made him an icon in the country, and he is often referred to as ‘Father Of The Nation’. The airport in with Super landed was called the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
Janet was a force in her own right. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from Romania and Hungary, Janet was born and raised in Chicago, moving to Guyana after marrying Cheddi Jagan. In 1973, after years of political activism, Janet was elected to Parliament and went on to become the longest-serving member of Guyana’s parliament. After her husband's death in 1997, Janet was elected president of Guyana, becoming the country’s first female president and Jewish leader. As one of a handful of Jewish heads of state in the world outside of Israel, Janet was by far the most famous Jew in the Caribbean.
Janet Rosenberg Jagan passed away in 2009, 12 years after her husband, and was survived by their two children, Dr. Cheddi (“Joey”) Jagan Jr. and Nadira Jagan-Brancier.
Like most people in the Caribbean, Super had heard of Jagan and his Jewish ancestry, and when he arrived in Guyana before Passover, he resolved to meet Dr. Jagan—a dentist based in Guyana—and give him Shmurah matzah for the Seder.
Guyana’s Jewish community does not have much of an infrastructure, and with no toehold to gain an introduction, Rabbi Super came up with a clever solution: walk up to his office door and knock.
Super is not the first Chabad rabbi to arrive in Guyana on a mission to find Jews. In the 1980s, Rabbi Yitzhchak Nemes went to Guyana on a business trip. Prior to his trip, the Lubavitcher Rebbe instructed him to find a Jew there as well. Although he had been told he wouldn’t, Rabbi Nemes managed to find a Jew with whom he put on Tefillin, and some years later arranged his burial in a Jewish cemetery.
When Super got to Dr. Jagan’s reception area, he introduced himself to the secretary as a visiting rabbi. She disappeared into the back, emerging a few minutes later to usher him into Dr. Jagan’s office.
The president’s son and the rabbi sat together for an hour. They discussed their family backgrounds, Judaism and Israel. Jagan, who hadn’t previously felt much affiliation with his Judaism, described experiencing a shift since Oct. 7. Feelings that he hadn’t had before began to perk up, and he was left with a sense of care and responsibility for his people. He was excited to see a rabbi in his office and be able to discuss his heritage.
At the end of their meeting, Super offered Jagan the opportunity to put on tefillin. Jagan had never heard of them, but after a quick introduction happily wrapped them and recited the Shema prayer for the first time in his life.
Before they parted, Super gave Jagan the box of Shmurah matzah for Passover and promised to stay in touch.
Super continued his trip in Guyana, reconnecting with his Jewish friends there, delivering matzah for their Seders, and holding a Torah class for the handful of Jews he had met over his short visits. “Every article on Guyana’s Jews says only one or two Jewish people live here. On my short visit here, I know that that’s a significant undercount,” Super said. “Just like Rabbi Nemes discovered in the 1980s, when we seek out a fellow Jew with an open heart, we find them.”
Excerpts from an article on Chabad.org
Rabbi Super puts on Tefillin with Dr. Joey Jagan, son of former Guyana presidents Cheddi and Janet Jagan, icons of Guyana
