The congregation traces its origins to the 1660s, when approximately 300 Sephardic Jews fled Recife, Brazil, after the Portuguese reconquered the Dutch colony where they had been living. Persecuted by the Portuguese Inquisition, they scattered across the Caribbean, and a significant group settled in Barbados. They brought more than their faith. These were people experienced in the cultivation and processing of sugarcane, an industry the Dutch had developed in Brazil. Their expertise in sugar production proved transformative for Barbados, as they passed their knowledge of cultivation and refining techniques to the island's English landowners. The crop that would make Barbados the wealthiest colony in Britain's Caribbean empire owed a considerable debt to refugees who arrived with nothing but their skills and their determination to rebuild. The synagogue they established in 1654 became the center of their community, one of the oldest Jewish houses of worship in the Western Hemisphere.

The original synagogue stood for nearly two centuries before a hurricane destroyed it in 1831. The congregation rebuilt, but by the early 20th century the Jewish community in Barbados had dwindled, and the synagogue was deconsecrated and sold in 1929. What followed was decades of indignity. The women's gallery that had overlooked the ark and bimah was converted into a full second floor. The original arches and flooring were ripped out. The building changed hands repeatedly, and the adjacent Jewish cemetery became a dumping ground. Then in 1983, the Barbados government seized the property with plans to demolish it and build a courthouse. The synagogue's survival came down to the petitioning of the small remaining local Jewish community. Two years after the seizure, the government transferred the building to the Barbados National Trust, and in 1986, restoration began under the leadership of Sir Paul Altman.

The restoration returned the synagogue to active use as a house of worship while keeping it under the stewardship of the National Trust. It remains the only synagogue in Barbados. But it was the 2008 archaeological discovery that added an entirely new dimension to the site. The mikveh uncovered by Stoner likely dates to the 17th century, making it one of the oldest ritual baths found in the Americas. Combined with the adjacent cemetery, where weathered gravestones bear inscriptions in Hebrew, Portuguese, and English, the complex tells the story of a diaspora within a diaspora: Sephardic Jews driven from Iberia to the Netherlands, then to Brazil, then to Barbados, building and rebuilding community at each stop. The Nidhe Israel Museum, which opened alongside the restored synagogue in 2008, preserves artifacts and history from the full span of Jewish life on the island. Haim Isaac Carigal, a widely traveled rabbi, was in Barbados and possibly serving the congregation at the time of his death in 1777, a reminder that this small Caribbean synagogue was connected to a global network of Jewish scholarship.

In 2011, the synagogue and the excavated mikveh were designated as UNESCO-protected properties within the World Heritage Site of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison. The recognition placed Nidhe Israel alongside the Parliament Buildings and the Garrison district as landmarks of international significance. Today the synagogue sits on its lane in central Bridgetown, bordered by Magazine Lane, James Street, Coleridge Street, and Pinfold Street, within the broader Synagogue Historic District. It is a working Conservative congregation, though the community remains small. The building itself is modest compared to the grand synagogues of Europe or even some in the Americas, but its significance lies in what it survived. Built by refugees, flattened by a hurricane, abandoned by attrition, nearly erased by a bulldozer, and ultimately saved by a community that refused to let it go -- Nidhe Israel is less a monument than a testament to persistence.