Luis De Torres, who was the official interpreter for Christopher Columbus, is thought to have been the first Jew and European to set foot in the New World when the Santa Maria landed at San Salvador in 1492. He was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldean, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Latin.

The Bahamas were first settled by the British in 1620, but at that time, relatively few Jews came to the islands. Still, a Jew, Moses Franks, served as attorney general and chief justice of the islands in the 18th century. After World War I, a few Jewish families from Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom settled in Nassau, the capital. Later Jews came to Freeport on Grand Bahamas Island.

United Bahamas Hebrew Congregation P.O. Box F1761 Freeport, Grand Bahama Island Tel. 242 373 2008

In 2022, about 200 Jews were living in the Bahamas, according to a Jewish Virtual Library survey.

In Nassau, there is a Conservative synagogue named for Luis de Torres, the Converso who served as Christopher Columbus's interpreter and the first European to set foot on the soil of the New World. In Freeport, there is a Reform congregation. The two congregations are joined together in the United Bahamas Hebrew Congregation.

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