The Pre-Emigration Period. The First Jews in America

The first Jew who landed in America by 1585 thirty year before the Pilgrims came to Plymouth was called Joachim Gaunse, a bohemian Jew and a mining expert.

He settled in Roanoke Island in North America in Virginia until 1586 then he came back to London. He was followed sixty years by Solomon Franco who settled in Boston, but this Jew alone could not constitute a Jewish community.

By August 1654, twenty three Jewish refugees who escaped from Brazil a Dutch colony left to the Portuguese, arrived to New Amsterdam and performed the first Jewish community. The coming of these Jews to this territory was strongly rejected by Peter Stuyvesant , the governor of the colony. He claimed that the Jews were harmful for the Christians since they are the enemy of the Christ, and by their poverty they will worsen the image of the community. He addressed a letter to the Amsterdam Chamber of Directors, in September 22, 1654, to expel them out of America as follows: The Jews who had arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you; the Deaconry [ which takes care of the poor] also fearing that owing to their present indigence [ due to the fact that they have been captured and robbed by privateers or pirates] they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developing place and the land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart.

In the meantime, the Jews of New Amsterdam addressed in their turn a petition to the West India Company stating that they had been for great help to the Netherlands. As a result, their request was accepted allowing them to continue their living there.

The next group who came after the Jews of New Amsterdam landed there after eighty years. In July 1733, forty Jewish people arrived on the William and Sarah boat, but the trustees of the colony rejected their coming. They claimed that 120 Christians that inhabited the colony would never want to live among the Jews. But the leader of the colony, James Oglethrope , welcomed those Jews warmly seeing in them a source of florishment to the country. He drew attention to the Jewish virtues considering their skillfulness and past work experience. He thought that they could be for great help to the colony. They could be exploited for their viticulture skill since Georgia needed farmers who know the land. This allowed them to settle and two years after their arrival, they established the synagogue of Kehillat Kodesh Mikva Israel as a prominent achievement of their acceptance in their new homeland.

The Earliest Jewish Life in the Colonies

The Sephardim Jews, who came to New Amsterdam by 1654, were followed by the Ashkenazim  who outnumbered them and were urged by specific reasons to leave their countries of origin to America. The Ashkenazim were subjected to maltreatment by the Catholics and the Protestants in the thirty years wars (1618-1648). Accordingly, the major part of these Jews fled to America searching for a place of safety where they could live and prosper.

The two categories of Jews started their lives on the American soil long before the first flow of immigration hailed from Central Europe, in1820.

The first Jews who came to New Amsterdam were a tiny group of twenty three people. Their number rose in 1695 to one hundred in the city of New York which received the largest Jewish population. In1730, they were estimated about 242 Jews living in this town. The Jewish community that existed in America in that period of time could be found in New York, Philadelphia, New Port, Charleston and savannah. The number of those Jews remained constant till the first great massive wave of immigration reached the continent.

As early as 1655, a year after the Jews‟ arrival to New Amsterdam, those people could win the right to worship at home although the fierce desire of Peter Stuyvesant to expel them from America. In addition to that, they could beneficiate from a space for communal religion and were allowed to build a cemetery. It is important to know that these Jews before creating their synagogues had rituals like baths “mikiveh” . The Jewish women did their religious duties in those baths as it is illustrated in the words of Naphtali Philip who said, “before the synagogue was built, there was a fine run of water in Mill Street, over which a bathing house was erected where the females of our nation performed their ablutions.

The Sephardim, who were established before the Ashkenazim in America had a comfortable economic status. They felt kinship with their fellows and decided to help them since they had the same origin in being Jews. This attitude strengthened the ties between the two groups although they evolved from different historical background, in Europe. As a result, they shared the same synagogues and cemeteries, intermarried, and united their efforts to build a strong community.

At that time, the Sephardim had the leadership of the community and all the Jewish institutions worked according to the Spanish traditions. But with the increasing number of the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim lost their power in the congregation and the leadership was shared by the two groups. The Ashkenazim supported more financially the building of the synagogues and the cemeteries.

The Jewish Religious Institutions

The Synagogue was built in former time. It represented not only a religious institution but also played a crucial role in the community‟s Jewish life. It was home to all Jews and a place of educational and charitable help. These institutions were run by the Parnassim, wealthy Jews who represented the larger society. They issued the rules according to the religious principles and provided the welfare to the community. They even had the possibility to punish the Jews who violate the religious laws and hanged their names publicly in the synagogues. In that period of time, there were no rabbis in America that made the Parnassim gain complete authority over the synagogue because of wealth even if they lacked official religious training.

The synagogue served as a place of education, it provided learning for the Jewish children. For instance, Shearith Israel provided the learners with the teaching of the Hebrew, Spanish and English by the Hazzan, a teacher employed by the elders of the congregation. The synagogue built also cemeteries, organized rituals over death and burial. Up to 1775, there were six synagogues in all colonial British North America. Montreal, New Port, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah. The oldest congregation was Shearith Israel which had a Spanish Portuguese synagogue. Its leaders issued religious rules, performed religious services as collecting money. They even built a sanctuary on Mill Street.