Educational Alliance

Chief commercial city of the state of New York and the largest city of the United States; contains a larger Jewish population than any other city in the world.

History:

When Jews settled in New York, about 1654, during the Dutch period, the Jewish population of Holland was very small, and the Jewish settlers were largely Sephardic exiles from Brazil and the West Indies, with an appreciable sprinkling of Ashkenazim from Holland and, subsequently, from England. England, to which Jews were readmitted soon after, had only a small Jewish population, and accordingly there were few Jewish immigrant settlers from that country during the period of English dominion, from 1664 to the close of the Revolution. It was only from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the German tide of immigration to America became considerable, carrying in its wake a Polish Jewish immigration, that the Jewish population of New York was heavily augmented. A new influx began about 1881, when Russian persecution drove hundreds of thousands of Jews to America's shores, Rumanian persecution during the last five years further augmenting the number. The history of the growth of the New York Jewry falls therefore into three periods; the first runs to 1812, when it numbered approximately five hundred souls; the next, the period of German immigration, runs to about 1881; the third period, that of Russian immigration, extends from that date to the present time (1904), when the Jewish population of the city is estimated at 672,776.

New York City in 1695, Locating the Synagogue.

The Dutch Period (1654-64):

It was fortunate for American Jewry that the territory of New York, then known as New Netherlands, was a Dutch possession in 1654. This was so not merely because some of the most enterprising of the Jews who fled from Brazil in that year, upon the Dutch capitulation, were enabled to look with considerable confidence to Dutch hospitality there, but because the more liberal and modern Dutch laws continued in theory and in practise to confer greater rights and privileges upon Jewish residents in New York under the English conquerors than England herself granted for many decades after. But Jewish relations to the Dutch colony of New Netherlands considerably antedated the first settlement of Jews there. When the Dutch West Indies Company was formed in 1620, Jews became influential stockholders and began immediately to exert an important influence upon the shaping of the company's fortunes.

Settlers in New Amsterdam.

When the Dutch were finally expelled from Brazil, in 1654, several thousand Jews resident there felt compelled to take to flight, and a party of twenty-three of these fugitives arrived at New Amsterdam on the ship "Saint Catarina" in Sept., 1654, and formed the first considerable avowedly Jewish settlement within the present limits of the United States; they seem to have arrived via the West Indies. There were, doubtless, a few isolated Jewish immigrants to North America prior to this date. In fact it is known that one Jacob Barsimson arrived in New Amsterdam from Holland on the ship "Pear Tree" in July, 1654, and there are references to several Jews having left Holland for New Netherlands in 1652.

Attitude of Stuyvesant.

Sketch and Site of the Old Mill Street Synagogue, New York.(From the "American Hebrew.")

In the case of the party from Brazil, their advent was at once signalized by legal proceedings against them: they had made themselves jointly responsible to the officers of the vessel for the passage-money of each, and several of the party were unable to pay their fares, most probably because they had been despoiled of their effects before arrival. The municipal authorities, on the application of the captain, found themselves compelled to direct the imprisonment of two of the number, after the sale of the effects of the party, until the money due had been paid. In these proceedings reference was made to remittances which some of the party shortly expected from Holland, while some had already paid their own passage-money and were required by agreement to pay for others; so it is not fair to infer that all these arrivals were indigent. While these cases were still pending another party of Jews, of greater means, arrived from Holland. These proceedings, and probably personal bigotry and irascibility, led Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New Netherlands, to order them to leave the colony, in which course he was abetted by some of his associates. But before these orderscould be executed instructions of a liberal character from the directors of the Dutch West Indies Company arrived, superseding local orders against the Jews. Stuyvesant's ire may have been again aroused by the report that more Jews were expected shortly from Holland, who would "then build here a synagogue." Under date of April 26, 1655, the directors of the Dutch West Indies Company instructed Stuyvesant that the prohibition of Jewish settlement recommended by him "would be unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable losses sustained by the Jews in the taking of Brazil, and also because of the large amount of capital which they have invested in shares of this company. . . . They shall have permission to sail to and trade in New Netherlands and to live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or the community, but be supported by their own nation."

Stuyvesant vouchsafed only a grudging assent to these instructions, and declined to permit one of these early Jewish settlers, Salvator d'Andrade, to purchase a house and lot in New Amsterdam, curtailed the right of Abraham de Lucena and others to send goods for purposes of trade to the Delaware River, and levied a special military tax on Jewish settlers, despite their protests, in Aug., 1655, Jews not being permitted to mount guard with other citizens. Further Jewish appeals to the directors at home resulted in a vigorous reproof of Stuyvesant coupled with more specific directions in favor of Jewish settlers, expressly providing that they should enjoy all the civil and political rights in New Netherlands which were accorded them in Amsterdam, and including express authorization to acquire real estate and to trade in the adjacent district. The specific limitations upon their rights contained in these instructions were fraught with important consequences, however, and should be noted: