owt,
rmest wishes to t entire
ca munity or a most
happy, healthy and
prosperous New Year!
Rosh HaShana
A Colonial Time
Records of Rosh HaShana in America before and just
after the revolution open the window on Jewish life.
RABBI DAVID GEFFEN
Special to the Jewish News
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1999
R60 Detroit Jewish News.
he first Rosh HaShana cele-
brated on this continent
came 122 years before the
U.S. Declaration of
Independence.
In 1654, the continent's first Jews
to make a permanent home in North
America arrived in New Amsterdam
(now New York City) only a day or
two before the Jewish New Year.
Almost four months earlier, they
began their trip as refugees from
Recife, Brazil, desperately trying to
escape the Inquisition brought to the
New World by the conquering
Portuguese.
Finally in September, after surviv-
ing pirate attacks, their ship anchored
in New Amsterdam's harbor. Since the
Jews owed the captain a considerable
sum of money, two of the first 23
arrivals, David Israel and Moses
Ambrosius, went to jail until funds
could be forwarded from Jews in
Amsterdam to clear up the debt.
Somehow, with all their financial
problems and in spite of the harass-
ment of the peg-legged governor Peter
Stuyvesant, this group observed Rosh
HaShana and Yom Kippur in a small
house that was home to several in
their group. There is no definitive
record of those services, but we know
of it from several individuals present,
Asser Levy and Jacob Bar Simson.
These first American Jews used
mahzorim, or holiday prayerbooks,
printed in Europe. The prayers were
explained via a Ladino commentary
written in Hebrew letters. We must
assume that the group had no shofar,
so they could only imagine the blast
of the ram's horn.
Once New York came under
British rule, it remained the largest
Jewish community in the colonies. In
this period, in addition to New York's
Shearith Israel, five other congrega-
David Geffen, who holds a doctorate
in American Jewish history, is rabbi of
Temple Israel in Scranton, Pa.
tions were established: in Charleston,
S.C., Savannah, Ga., Richmond, Va.,
Philadelphia, Pa., and Newport, R.I.
During the 18th century, commer-
cial letters by Jews attested to the
importance of the Jewish holidays.
For example, Benjamin Gomez of
New York wrote to Aaron Lopez of
Newport, R.I., about a business mat-
ter just before Rosh HaShana. He
concluded: "Announcing you the
compliments of the (Holiday) season,
and that you all may be recorded in
the books of life."
Lopez answered with this saluta-
A prayerbook
translated into
English.
don: "May you enjoy the approaching
holy days and many others to come
with perfect health and uninterrupted
felicities."
As the 1760s began, a Jewish pio-
neering step was taken via the first
English translation of the machzor.
That work appeared in 1761 in New
York when its Jewish community
numbered only several hundred peo-
ple.
The Jewish residents of New York,
mostly merchants or small business-
men, were members of the Spanish-
Portugese synagogue, Shearith Israel,
which followed Sephardic ritual.
Until the new machzor showed up,
their prayerbooks were printed either
in Amsterdam or London, the main
centers of the European Sephardic
communities.
Historian Abraham Karp com-
mented on why the New World was
singled out for this unique publishing
event instead of London, home to
CONT. ON PAGE
R62