Jewish Cemetery of Coro

The Jewish Cemetery of Coro is the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in the Americas, opened in 1832 by the Sephardic families who had crossed from Curaçao to settle in newly independent Venezuela. The walled enclosure on the western edge of the old town holds around 170 graves, many with Hebrew and Spanish inscriptions and the elaborate carved tableware of the Sephardic tradition.

Access is by appointment only — the gate is normally locked and a custodian from the surviving local community will open it on request. The Jewish Cultural Centre on Calle Zamora can arrange visits and is the easiest place to start. It is a small, quiet site, but a remarkable record of a community that shaped 19th-century Coro out of all proportion to its numbers.

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The cemetery's first burial was Hanna de David Hoheb in 1832, three years after Sephardic families fleeing economic hardship in Curaçao were granted full civic rights in Venezuela. The community they founded in Coro became the seed of Venezuelan Jewry; descendants of the original settlers still hold the key to the gate.

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