Editor's Note: As American Jews celebrate the yearlong 350th anniversary of our arrival in this nation,
the Jewish News honors this rich history with an essay about the early Jewish settlers, stories about local
events and a keepsake full-color poster featuring- a Michigan historic timeline. Enjoy our shared history.
Ken i Guten Cohen, story development editor

Beginning 350 years ago, colonial Jews set the tone for today's Jewish communities. ft:,

e Jews pride ourselves on our long histo- Inquisition continued or many decades, eventual-
ly reaching the Portuguese colony of Recife, ‘Brazil.
ry as a people and as a religious civiliza-
In the decades before 1654, Recife was under
tion, and this year marks the 350th
Dutch rule and it became a thriving center of the
anniversary of the first Jewish community in what
sugar industry in Brazil. While there was still anti-
later became the United States.
Jewish
discrimination in those years on the part of
While there can be no precise dating -- scholars
the
Dutch,
the city attracted many Jews. But by
generally speak of 3,500 years
that year, the Portuguese recaptured Recife and
of unbroken Jewish history
beginning with the patriarch
Abraham (Genesis: 12) when
he followed a Divine call and
left his ancestral home in Ur of
Chaldees (present-day Iraq) for brought with them the dreaded Inquisition. Afraid
for their lives in the Portuguese colony of Recife,
the land of Israel.
23 Jews were forced tb do what unfortunately is an
If we use the 3,500-year fig-
unhappy reality of Jewish history: They fled their
ure, the story of Jews in
homes
for an unknown'strange land in search of
America represents 10 percent
freedom
and security.
of recorded Jewish
history. Not an
insignificant
amount of time.
I want to focus on
i
the founding of the community espe-
114 •
cially its early years, and its many diffi-
culties as well its many achievements. I
also want to highlight a person who
represents the important transition from
Jewish life in British colonial America to
full participation in the newly inde-
pendent United States of America.
In addition, I believe the early history
of the Jewish community in America
offers some lessons for us and for the
future of our community.
In many ways, the first Jewish arrivals
in America, victims ofteligious bigotry
mirror many Christian groups who also
sought haven on these shores: Quakers
in Pennsylvania, Baptists in Georgia,
Catholics in Maryland and Protestant .
Pilgrims in New England.
r lift t
During the 15th century, Jews living
on the Iberian Peninsula — Spain and
Portugal -- endured tragic physical
expulsion and bitter religious persecu-
tion. We mistakenly believe that the
Immtgrants coming to America, New York 1909
persecution came to an end in the fate-
ful year of 1492. But it was not so. Anti-
Because the long arm of the Portuguese
Jewish harassment and the Church-sponsored
Inquisition reached across the Atlantic Ocean, the
23 embarked on a long sea journey seeking new
Rabbi Rudin, American Jewish Committee's senior
lives. At that moment in history, the various
inter-religious adviser; is distinguished visiting pro- European colonial powers, Spain, Portugal, Great
fessor at Saint Leo University in Saint Leo, Fla.
Britain, France and Holland were competing with

W

'"":14i,

,•

one another as they established colonies in Norfl
,
and South America.
The Recife Jews, some of them already refugees ,,',.
from Europe, sailed for the one colony that o e'- 4
a realistic hope for security and survival: the Du ' tch:
settlement of New Amsterdam. It is likely the ,.
Jews were aware that a commercial base d
in the Netherlands, one that included Jewish '..::!!!;
members, had founded and funded the New
,
Amsterdam colony. ' . ' . . - . ::::'..:!ii-
..,
But the initial reception in that colony, where::;0,.
the Hudson and East Rivers meet, was hardly an;ii4.: .
easy or welcoming one. New Amsterdam's Goi:i.,: ;i'Vt
Peter Stuyvesant did not want the Jews to settle:i!:14. I ; .
there. However, the Jewish members of the settle
ment company headquartered in Holland con:;!ii:
pelled the hostile Stuyvesant to admit the 23: ‘ ::li,
And in another familiar aspect of Jewish ' ''''' ' s
.:
,,%,, .-
the 23 had to agree the tiny Jewish:.
munity would not be a burden, fi nanc i al
: b and in other ways, to the general socie
ty. From the very beg-in.ning, Jews were
er!::*
:,,,1, ,
America on sufferance and were less
full citizens. It required centuries of . .'.•:''''Yi:
intense struggle to reverse that sitution,.I;:1

. .,

Gaining Full Freedom

Although the first Jews in New
Amsterdam were free of the Inquisition,
it is likely they felt both literally and figu
ratively "at the end of the Jewish road.
That sense is reflected in the revealing
name they gave to the first synagogue
established in what is now the United
States. Instead of such conventional
,7
names as "Beth Israel" (House of Israel),
"B'nai Israel" (Children of Israel) or
"Beth El" (House of God), the early set-
ders chose "Shearith Israel" (the remnant
of Israel). For the last 100 years, the con- ‘
oreoationu
's bildina has been loCated at
‘:
b
b
West
70th
l
Street
and
e
Centra
Park
W
st
C.>
in Manhattan.
Each time I attend services in Shearith
Israel's magnificent sanctuary that is pat-
terned on a Sephardic Amsterdam syna-
gogue, I think about the congregation's
‘.
founders and the fact they had no idea they were:,
the forerunners of what became the world's largest, ::
richest and freest Jewish diaspora community in'
3,500 years. Nor could the 23 have known that
just .10 years after their arrival in New Amsterclarr,,'
the British would capture the colony and give it

