Fighting For Their 11°
ts
On the eve of the 350th anniversary of Jews in America, and coinciding with the Passover season,
noted historian Jonathan Sarna explores the colonies'
Jews' struggles for freedom.
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An engraving depicting the-New Amsterdam- colony in 1654.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
Special to the Jewish News
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anti-Jewish governor, Peter Stuyvesant.
ple of different religions. Its advice to Stuyvesant in
Over Stuyvesant's objections, they won the right
1663 became, in time, the policy that distinguished
to set down roots in New Amsterdam, specifically
America from other countries around the world.
Waltham, Mass.
the right to "travel, trade, live and remain," provided
"Shut your eyes, at least [do] not force people's
bout 350 years ago, in 1654, a small ves-
that "the poor among them shall not become a bur-
consciences," the company wrote, but allow every
sel named the Ste. Catherine, or St.
den to the company or to the community, but be
one to have his own belief, as long as he behaves
Catrina, sailed into the port of New
supported by their own nation."
quietly
and legally, gives no offense to his neighbor
Amsterdam.
No less important a theme from 1654 is the fact
and
does
not oppose the government."
Most of the ship's passengers — "23 souls, big and that the Dutch authorities, forced to choose between
Having
received the right to settle, the most diffi-
little," according to an account at the time — were
their economic interests and their religious sensibili-
cult
challenge
facing New Amsterdam's nascent Jewish
bedraggled Jewish refugees from Recife, Brazil, who
ties, voted with their pocketbooks in allowing Jews to
community — a challenge American Jews would con-
had been expelled when the Portuguese recaptured
remain — a significant sign of modernity.
front time and again over the centuries — was how to
the South American colony from the Dutch.
The Jews' usefulness — the fact that they might
preserve
and maintain Judaism, particularly with their
The refugees were not the first Jews to arrive in
help to enrich the colonies — proved far more impor- numbers being so small and Protestant pressure to
North America. In 1585, a Jew named Joachim
tant to the Dutch than the fact that they were not
conform so great.
Gaunse served as the metallurgist and mining engineer
Christians. The Dutch West India Company feared
From the earliest years of Jewish settlement, a
for the ill-fated English colony on Roanoke Island.
that a heavy-handed and restrictive colonial policy
range of responses to this challenge developed.
Thereafter, a small number of other Jews, mostly
would diminish the population, discourage immigra-
At one extreme stood Solomon Pietersen, a mer-
intrepid merchants bent on trade, made brief stops at
tion and scare off investors.
chant
from Amsterdam who came to town in 1654,
American ports to conduct business.
New Amsterdam's Jews also
However, the "big and little" refugees from Recife
extended the boundaries of
differed from the Jews who came before them.
American religious pluralism.
Though economically ruined, they sought to settle
Stuyvesant, an elder in the
down and form a permanent Jewish community in
Dutch church and the son of a
North America, to "navigate and trade near and in
minister, sought to promote
New Netherland, and to live and reside there."
morality and social cohesion
Much can be learned from the experience of
by enforcing Calvinist ortho-
America's earliest Jews. For one thing, they displayed
doxy and clamping down on
political savvy in fighting for their rights and illustrated
competing faiths. One of his
by personal example their principle that "all Israel is
many reasons for denying Jews
responsible for one another."
rights was that, "Giving them
Helped by their fellow Jews back in Amsterdam,
liberty, we cannot refuse the
among them "principal shareholders" in the Dutch
Lutherans and Papists," as
West India Company that controlled New Amsterdam Catholics were then known.
— which later became known as New York — they
He understood that the
succeeded in overcoming a series of legal and political
decision about admitting
obstacles, including fierce opposition from the colony's Jews to New Amsterdam was,
at the deepest level, a deci-
sion about the social and
Jonathan Sarna is the Joseph H. 6. Belle R. Braun
religious character of the
Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis
young community.
University and author of the recently published
Over his objections, the
In 1654, a small vessel named the Ste. Catherine, or St. Catrina, sailed
`American Judaism: A History" (Yale University Press;
Dutch West India Company
into the port of New Amsterdam; most of the ship's passengers were bedrag-
$35), from which some of this article is drawn.
extended limited rights to peo-
gled Jewish refugees from Recife, Brazil.
A