The Jewish Diaspora

Migration

First Jews to New Amsterdam

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1654Amsterdam → the Americas

Why it happened

In January 1654 Portugal recaptured Recife, ending Dutch Brazil's religious toleration; its Jews, who had prospered under Dutch rule, fled, and a band of 23 refugees sailed for the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.11

The migration

The community's roots lay in Amsterdam's Portuguese-Jewish 'Nation'; Kahal Zur Israel, founded in Recife in 1636, was the Americas' first synagogue, serving roughly 1,450 .2 Jacob Barsimson had already reached New Amsterdam from the Netherlands aboard the Peartree on 22 August 1654.3 In early September a court record dated 7 September shows 23 refugees arriving on the St. Catherine, ordered to pay freight and debts.1 Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, objecting to their 'customary usury,' petitioned to expel them,3 but the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam overruled him on 15 February 1655.34 Asser Levy secured guard duty3 and full burgher rights3 for the newcomers by 1657. Their congregation, Shearith Israel—founded in 1654—endures as the oldest Jewish congregation in North America.5

Sources

  1. AArnold Wiznitzer. 1954. The Exodus from Brazil and Arrival in New Amsterdam of the Jewish Pilgrim Fathers, 1654. Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 44 80–97. link
  2. BArnold Wiznitzer. 1960. Jews in Colonial Brazil. Columbia University Press
  3. ASamuel Oppenheim. 1909. The Early History of the Jews in New York, 1654-1664: Some New Matter on the Subject. Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 18 1–97. link
  4. BPhilip Sandler. 1955. Earliest Jewish Settlers in New York (To the Tercentenary of Jewish Settlement in America). New York History 36 39–50. link
  5. CCongregation Shearith Israel. 2026. Our History. Congregation Shearith Israel link