Celebrating 350 Years of Jewish History in America

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The New York Sun

Boats land each day in New York, but one landing at the South Street Seaport September 12 will be unusual. Its arrival will re-create the landing in New Amsterdam in September 1654 of a vessel carrying about 23 Jews, marking the start of the first Jewish communal settlement in North America.


“This is where it all began – right here in New Amsterdam,” said attorney Robert Rifkind, chairman of Celebrate 350, the national umbrella organization established to support the celebration of the milestone.


When Jews were expelled from Recife in Brazil, a boatload came to New Amsterdam in 1654 asking for the right to settle and trade. The Dutch West India Company allowed them to remain.


Although 1654 marks the settlement of Jews in America, there were earlier Jewish visits to America. A Brandeis University historian, Jonathan Sarna, said the earliest Jew he knew of in America was a mining engineer named Joachim Gaunse who came to Roanoke for about a year in 1585.


“It’s pretty astonishing,” said Mr. Sarna, author of “American Judaism: A History” (Yale University Press).”Most American Jews have no notion that Jews have been in America that long.”


Mr. Rifkind said, “Our title deeds are as ancient as anybody else.”


Mr. Sarna said that when he asks students, they often say Jews arrived in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. “When their ancestors arrived is when they think Jews arrived in America,” he said.


The event at South Street Seaport is part of a year-long series of celebrations arranged under the auspices of Celebrate 350.


The celebration is important, Mr. Sarna said, in helping to broaden the discussion of America and Jewry. “When people think of Jewish history, they often think of persecution and the Holocaust,” he said. But this story is “altogether different,” he said, one of Jews living and flourishing under freedom, as well as the “challenges of that freedom.” American Jewish history, Mr. Sarna said, is no less important than German or Eastern European Jewish history, although it generally does not get the same attention in school curricula.


Mr. Sarna said women’s history is playing a significant role among the 350th celebrations, which was not the case in celebrations 50 years ago, for example.


Mr. Sarna noted that America and Israel are now the two greatest centers of concentration of Jewry, even though about two-thirds of Jews lived in Europe in the interwar years.


That the Library of Congress is hosting the exhibit – “just as it celebrates any other number of groups” – shows how much Jews are considered a part of the fabric of American life, he said.


Leading the commemorative year is a former executive of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Alice Herman, who recently was appointed executive director of Celebrate 350, succeeding Lawrence Rubin, who completed the initial organizational phase.


Notable events have occurred already including a three-day celebration in Newport, R.I., centering on Touro Synagogue, America’s oldest synagogue building and featuring a keynote speech by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A two-day celebration of Jews in baseball occurred earlier this week at Cooperstown, N.Y. Two Jewish players, Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, are in the Hall of Fame.


Coming up September 7 at the 92nd Street Y is a concert featuring Neil Sedaka, Philip Glass, and others. It is part of the first annual New York Jewish Music & Heritage festival taking place this month.


An exhibition will open on September 9 at the Library of Congress titled From Haven to Home: Celebrating 350 Years of Jewish Life in America, which will subsequently travel to New York and elsewhere. Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City, will host a special service and commemoration.


Mr. Rifkind said, “There are an array of American values that have contributed significantly to one of the great success stories in Jewish history – namely, the experience of American Jewry. These values include a commitment to equal justice under law, a commitment to religious freedom, and separation of church and state. In my view, those things need to be celebrated, because what isn’t celebrated is ignored. And what is ignored, erodes.”


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