City overview
Curaçao is a Dutch Caribbean island 40 miles off the Venezuelan coast, where pastel-coloured colonial waterfronts, a UNESCO-listed capital and more than 35 named beaches sit inside a dry, cactus-studded landscape that stays warm and largely rainless all year. Willemstad is the centre of everything — the floating Queen Emma Bridge, the Handelskade merchant houses and the island's museums — while the western half of the island holds the cliff-backed coves, national parks and reef diving. Jewish life on Curaçao goes back to the 1650s and the community today numbers under 350. Orthodox life on the island runs through Shaarei Tsedek in the Mahaai district, an Ashkenazi congregation founded in 1959 and led since 2017 by Rabbi Refoel and Chani Silver as Chabad of Curaçao, which also supplies the island's only kosher food.
Fort Amsterdam & Fort Church
Curacao
A 1635 Dutch fort that still houses the Governor's Palace and government offices, together with the 1769 Fort Church and its small museum.
Time needed
30–45 minutes
Hours
Monday–Friday 10:00 AM–1:30 PM, Saturday–Sunday Closed
Tips
Look for the British cannonball still lodged in the church's south wall, left there after an attack in 1804.
Phone
+5999 433-3200Neighborhood
Punda, Willemstad
Activity providers
Kosher map of Curacao
Pick a place on the map or search an address or hotel to see what is kosher around it.