Coro Synagogue

The Coro Synagogue on Talavera Street is a former synagogue that now operates as a museum of Venezuelan Jewish history. Built in the 19th century by the Sephardic Jewish community that settled in Coro from Curaçao, it is one of the oldest synagogue buildings in South America. The building itself is modest — a colonial house adapted for religious use — but the museum inside documents the history of Venezuela's Jewish communities from the colonial period onward.

The adjacent Jewish Cemetery of Coro is separately notable as the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in the Americas, with graves dating from the early 19th century. Both sites are within easy walking distance in the colonial centre.

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A story
The Sephardic Jews who settled in Coro in the 19th century came largely from the island of Curaçao, just 70 kilometres offshore, which had one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere. Coro became an extension of that community, and the synagogue served a congregation that at its peak numbered in the hundreds. By the 20th century the community had declined; the synagogue is now a museum rather than an active place of worship.