Everyone comes to Curaçao 🇨🇼 for the beaches. I came for the floor.😉 via jonahplatt Mikvé Israel-Emanuel — the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas. Consecrated 1732. Four pillars hold it up, each one named for a matriarch.💪 And the floor is sand, so our ancestors in Spain and Portugal could pray without anyone hearing their footsteps.🤫 Their gravestones are carved in Portuguese. Their weddings smash the bottle on a silver plate — a tradition that exists nowhere else on earth.✨ 375 years later, the doors are still open. Shabbat is still sung. And the guest book says the same three words on every page… Am Yisrael Chai. ✡️ #jewishpeople #jewishlife #jewishstories