His father contracted out the polishing, and one of the polishers was Indo-Guyanese. As a psychology student at the University of London, Ades began helping his father, who maintained an office in London’s diamond district, at work. (Courtesy of Ades)īut the family was not yet settled: In 1967, Meyer took the family to London, where Ades finished high school and took his university entrance exams, excelling in all of the languages he had picked up - English, French, Italian, German and Hebrew.

Rafi Ades was born in Israel, grew up in Europe and settled on Guyana’s Sloth Island, which he owns and where he operates a guesthouse. Guyana, an English-speaking country of roughly 800,000, came to international prominence in 1978 as the site of the Jonestown massacre, in which more than 900 followers of cult leader Jim Jones were killed, either by suicide or murder. The other is a former Madison Avenue marketing executive from Chicago who until recently ran the country’s largest tour operator.īoth offer a window into three dynamics that define Guyana: a government that embraces all faiths, an economy based on extractive industries and an expansive rainforest the country hopes will be a draw for its growing ecotourism industry. One is a Guyanese-British-Israeli guesthouse operator who has been working in Guyana since the 1970s. In fact, another Jew had recently purchased an island off the coast of Guyana, and 25 years later, there are at least two Jews living in the tiny South American nation.

( JTA) - When Janet Jagan, an immigrant from the United States, made history by becoming Guyana’s prime minister in 1997, she was thought to be the country’s only Jew.

Guyanese friend on internet