Large Silver Presentation Tankard – Jewish Community of Colon, Panama, 1909

Large Silver Presentation Tankard – Jewish Community of Colon, Panama, 1909
Large silver tankard, presented by the Jewish community of Colón, Panama, to the community leader Jacob Julius Sasso, 1909.
Silver, turned, cast and engraved. Marks of William Hutton & Sons Ltd., Sheffield, 1909.
Dedicatory inscription: "Presented to Mr. J. Julius Sasso / by the Hebrew Community / of / Colon Rep. of Panama / A token of appreciation / esteem and regard / 1st Tishri 5670 / 16th September 1909."
Julius (Jacob) Sasso (1878-1932) was a leader of the Jewish community of Colón, Panama. Born in St. Thomas in the Caribbean Islands, he immigrated to Panama and married Esther Hyman, from the Jewish community of Jamaica.
The first Jews who settled in Panama were exiles and Marranos from Spain and Portugal, who escaped the Iberian Peninsula to the New World. These were followed by Jews travelling from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast during the Gold Rush (mid-19th century), some of whom remained in Panama. In 1890, the Kahal Kadosh Yangakov (sic) congregation was founded in Colón, an English-speaking enclave in Panama. That same year, the city was decimated by a fire, which hit the community hard, but the construction of the Panama Canal brought a renewed economic surge to the city and in 1913, the community inaugurated its own synagogue, which was the first synagogue in Panama. Other Jewish communities, which were partially made up of descendants of Marranos who had returned to observing Judaism openly, were wary of calling too much attention to themselves in their Catholic, Spanish-speaking surroundings; in contrast, most of the population of Colón was Protestant and English-speaking, and the local Jews had the confidence to be prominent. The Panama communities were under considerable influence from the Jewish communities of the US, and for many years English, rather than Spanish, was the liturgical language in the community.
Maximum height: 16 cm. Diameter of base: 11 cm.