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History of the Jews in America
History of the Jews in America
Ezekiel’s Statue of Religious Liberty in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN AMERICA FROM THE PERIOD OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD TO THE PRESENT TIME BY PETER WIERNIK NEW YORK The Jewish Press Publishing Company 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912 By THE JEWISH PRESS PUBLISHING CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED There were less than ten thousand Jews in the New World three centuries after its discovery, and about two-thirds of them lived in the West Indies and in Surinam or Dutch Guiana in South Ame
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION PART I. THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PERIOD. CHAPTER I. THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD. The Jew of Barcelona who has navigated the whole known world—Judah Cresques, “the Map Jew,” as director of the Academy of Navigation which was founded by Prince Henry the Navigator—One Jewish astronomer advises the King of Portugal to reject the plans of Columbus—Zacuto as one of the first influential men in Spain to encourage the discoverer of the New World—Abravanel,
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
But the Church alone could never have accomplished the ruin of the Jews if the changing economic conditions and the rise of a large and powerful class of Christian merchants did not help to undermine the position of the erstwhile solitary trading class. The burgher classes were the chief opponents and persecutors of their Jewish competitors: they seconded, and in many cases instigated, the efforts of the clergy to exclude the Jews from many occupations. So when the city overpowered the land owne
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
Louis de Santangel and other Marranos interposed in favor of Columbus when he was about to go to France in January, 1492, because Ferdinand refused to make him Viceroy and Life-Governor of all the lands which he might discover. Santangel’s pleadings with Isabella were especially effective, and when the question of funds remained the only obstacle to be overcome, he who was saved from the stake by the King’s grace at the time when several other members of the Santangel family perished, advanced a
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
A later document containing the general edicts to be read on the third Sunday of Lent and the fourth Sunday of Anathema in every third year in the Cathedral of Lima and all the towns of the districts, was printed in Peru itself shortly after 1641, and records the names of the places which were included in the jurisdiction of those issuing it. It reads: “We, the Inquisitors against Heresy, Immorality and Apostasy in this city and Archbishopric of Los Reyes (Lima) with the Archbishopric of Los Cha
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
A notable instance, typical of the times, was the case of Francisco Maldonado de Silva. His sister Doña Isabel Maldonado, forty years old, on the 8th day of July, 1626, testified before the Commissioner of the City of Santiago de Chile that her brother had, to her horror and indignation, confessed to being a Jew, imploring her not to betray him and using all endeavors to convert her too. He was arrested in Concepcion, Chili, April 29, 1627, and was transported to Lima in July of the same year, w
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SHORT-LIVED DOMINION OF THE DUTCH OVER BRAZIL. The friendship between the Dutch and the Jews—Restrictions and privileges in Holland—Dutch-Jewish distributors of Indian spices—Preparations to introduce the Inquisition in Brazil—Jews help the Dutch to conquer it—Southey’s description of Recife—Vieyra’s description. The United Provinces of Netherland, or, as it is commonly called, Holland, became a safe place for Jews as soon as the Union of Utrecht (1579) made its independence reasonably secur
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
The Dutch West India Company, which was formed in 1622 in furtherance of the project of conquering Brazil, had Jews of Amsterdam among its large stockholders, and several of them in its Board of Directors. One of the arguments in favor of its organization was “that the Portuguese themselves—some from their hatred of Castille, others because of their intermarriage with new-Christians and their consequent fear of the Inquisition—would either willingly join or feebly oppose an invasion, and all tha
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
Aboab, Aguilar, the Nassys, Perreires, the Mezas, Abraham de Castro and Joshua Zarfati, both surnamed el Brasil , and many others returned to Amsterdam. Jacob de Velosino, ( b. in Pernambuco, 1639, d. in Holland, 1712), the first Hebrew author born on American soil, settled at The Hague. Others went to Surinam, Cayenne and Curaçao, and it is generally assumed that the first Jewish settlers who in that year arrived in New Amsterdam (the future New York) came directly—or at least indirectly—from P
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
On September 12, 1659, the Jews were permitted, under the patronage of David Nassi, to found a colony on the island of Cayenne (French Guiana). According to the tenor of the eighteen articles contained in the letters patent of that date, all the land over which they exercised the rights of possession within four years from that date, would become their property; and they would be allowed to administer justice according to the Jewish usages and customs. The colony was further increased by the arr
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
The prosperity of those who remained in Curaçao went on increasing in the eighteenth century. A benevolent society was established in 1715; five years later they responded liberally to an appeal for aid from the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York, and in 1756 met with an equal generosity a similar appeal from the Jews of Newport. By 1750 their numbers had increased to about two thousand. They were prosperous merchants and traders, and held positions of prominence in the commercial and poli
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
These instructions came as the result of a petition sent to the directors by Abraham d’Lucena, Salvatore d’Andrade and Jacob Cohen, for themselves and in the name of others of the Jewish nation, asking for a confirmation of the privileges, which was thus granted. These three and two other Jews, Joseph da Costa and David Frera, were in the preceding year, 1655, assessed each 1,000 florins to defray the cost of erecting the outer fence or city wall, from which Wall street takes its name. It was th
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
More Jewish settlers arrived from the West Indies in 1694; but the great impulse to the commercial activity which raised Newport to the zenith of its prosperity was given by a number of Portuguese Jews who settled there about the middle of the eighteenth century. Most prominent among those were Jacob Rodrigues Rivera (died at an advanced age in 1789), who arrived in 1745, and Aaron Lopez, who came in 1750. The former introduced into America the manufacture of sperm oil, having brought the art wi
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
The committee which was appointed on the same day the Declaration of Independence was adopted, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, to prepare a device for a seal for the United States, at first proposed that of Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand, passing through the dividing waters of the Red Sea in pursuit of the Israelites: with rays from a pillar of fire beaming on Moses, who is represented as standing on the shore extending
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
The third and loyalist member of the family, David Franks ( b. in New York, 1720; d. in Philadelphia, 1793), son of Jacob Franks, settled in Philadelphia early in life, and was elected a member of the provincial Assembly in 1748. He supplied the army with provisions during the French and Indian War, and in 1755 he assisted to raise a fund for the defense of the colony. On November 7, 1765, he signed the Non-Importation Resolution; his name is also appended to an agreement to take the King’s pape
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
To this letter, which bears unmistakable traces of having been originally composed in Rabbinical Hebrew, the Father of His Country replied as follows: TO THE HEBREW CONGREGATION OF NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND. Gentlemen:—While I have received with much satisfaction your address, replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens. The r
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
In April, 1790, the Legislature passed an act to allow the Hebrew Congregation to raise eight hundred pounds sterling by a lottery. The managers were: Manuel Josephson, Solomon Lyon, Solomon Hays, Solomon Etting, William Wistar and John Duffield. The last two were not Jews, but were placed among the trustees probably to give the project some influence with members of other denominations. The inevitable secession of the Ashkenazic element took place in 1802, when the “Hebrew-German Society Rodef
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
In a letter to Madison, dated December 16, 1786, Jefferson, who was then our Minister to France, wrote: “The Virginia Act for religious freedom has been received with infinite approbation in Europe, and propagated with enthusiasm. I do not mean by the governments, but by the individuals who compose them. It has been translated into French and Italian, has been sent to most of the courts of Europe, and has been the best evidence of the falsehoods of those reports which stated us to be in anarchy.
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
The “Jew Bill” became a clearly defined issue in Maryland politics, and here we see again the American peculiarity mentioned above ( page 118 ), that those who knew the Jew best were his most ardent defenders. Several representatives from country districts, where Jews were known by name only, failed of re-election because they had voted for the repeal of Jewish disabilities: while, on the other hand, a disposition favorable to Jewish emancipation became at an early date a sine qua non of electio
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
But during all these varied activities he never forgot, as he was indeed seldom permitted to forget, that he was a Jew. He had strong convictions on the subject of Jewish nationality and devoted considerable attention to the Jewish question in general. Finally, in 1825, he turned to his long cherished scheme of the restoration of the Jews to their past glory as a nation. For this purpose he acquired, with the aid of some of his friends, an island thirteen miles in length and about five miles bro
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
There was not, however, sufficient wealth in the new community to enable the congregation to undertake the work unaided, and an appeal was sent to the older congregations in the United States and also to England, for help in the proposed undertaking. A copy of this appeal has been preserved (in “Publications,” X , pp. 98 – 99) and reads as follows: TO THE ELDERS OF THE JEWISH CONGREGATION AT CHARLESTON. Gentlemen :—Being deputed by our Congregation in this place, as their committee to address yo
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
The oldest Jewish congregation in Illinois outside of Chicago is that of Peoria, surnamed Anshe Emet, which was organized in 1860. In the neighboring State of Indiana, which was admitted to the Union in 1816, Jews began to settle about the same time as in Illinois, and there are four communities which date back to the period before the Civil War. The oldest Jewish congregation in the state is the Achdut we-Sholom of Fort Wayne, which was instituted in 1848. The Congregation Ahawat Achim of Lafay
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
The most prominent Jewish soldier of the Mexican war was David Camden de Leon ( b. in South Carolina, 1813; d. in Santa Fé, N. M. , 1872). He graduated as a physician from the University of Pennsylvania in 1836 and two years later entered the United States army as an assistant surgeon. He served with distinction in the Seminole war of 1835 – 42, which was the most bloody and stubborn of all wars against Indian tribes. For several years afterwards he was stationed on the Western frontier. He serv
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
Rabbi Isaac Leeser. He was born in Neuenkirchen, Prussia, in 1806, and received his secular education in the gymnasium of Münster. But he was also instructed in Hebrew and was well versed in several tractates of the Talmud, when he left for the United States at the age of eighteen. He came to this country in May, 1824, and settled in Richmond, Va. , being employed in the business of his uncle, Zalma Rehiné, for the following five years. He went to a school for a short time, but studied much in h
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
Leeser’s successor in the pulpit of Mickweh Israel in Philadelphia was also a prominent conservative, Sabato Morais ( b. in Leghorn, Italy, 1823; d. in Philadelphia, 1897). After having spent five years in London as the master of a Jewish Orphans’ School, he arrived in Philadelphia in 1851, and “until his death his influence was a continually growing power for conservative Judaism.... Though his ministry covered the period of greatest activity in the adaptation of Judaism in America to changed c
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The letter by Mr. John Forsyth (1780 – 1841) to the Consul, which is mentioned in the above communication, was as follows: Washington, August, 14, 1840. JOHN GLIDDON, ESQ. , United States Consul at Alexandria, Egypt. Sir:—In common with all civilized nations, the people of the United States have learned with horror the atrocious crimes imputed to the Jews of Damascus, and the cruelties of which they have been the victims. The President fully participates in the public feeling, and he cannot
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
This man was Michael Heilprin ( b. in Piotrkow, Russian-Poland, 1823; d. in Summit, N. J. , 1888), the son of Pinhas Mendel Heilprin ( b. in Lublin, Russian-Poland, 1801; d. in Washington, D. C. , 1863). His father, who was a scholarly merchant of the old Polish-Jewish type and the author of several works in Hebrew, was his only teacher, and brought him up in that spirit of enlightened Orthodoxy which was not antagonistic to the acquisition of secular learning. Michael’s almost phenomenal memory
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
He was the son of Philip ( b. about 1782) and Rebecca de Mendes Benjamin, who emigrated from London, England, to St. Thomas, W. I. , in 1808, shortly after their marriage, where the son was born August 6, 1811. The Benjamins removed to the United States, where they originally intended to go, about 1818, and settled in Charleston, S. C. Judah Philip entered Yale University in 1825, and left in 1827, without taking a degree. A year later he came to New Orleans, where he taught English, learned Fr
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
It is also to the Union army that we have to go to find Jewish officers who commanded regiments on the battlefields. Brevet Major General Frederick Knefler, a native of Hungary, who rose to the colonelcy of the 79th Indiana Regiment and subsequently became a Brigadier-General, and was made Brevet Major-General for meritorious conduct at Chickamauga, is classed as a Jew. Edward S. Solomon (known also as Salomon; b. in Sleswick-Holstein, 1826; d. 1909) emigrated to the United States after receivi
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Independent Order B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant), which seems destined to be the great Jewish international organization of the future, though founded in 1843, did not assume its commanding position until about a quarter of a century afterward. It had less than 3,000 members in 1857. Three years after the close of the Civil War its membership rose to 20,000, which was probably a larger proportion of the Jewish population of the country at that time than it ever had before or after. It n
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The marked diminution or practical cessation of Jewish immigration from Germany by no means meant a stoppage of Jewish immigration. There was a steady flow of immigration from Russia, which, beginning with the exodus from Russian-Poland of 1845 (see above, page 189 ), has actually never ceased until this day, although it did not assume the immense proportions of the last thirty years. The “Aufruf” on behalf of the Russian-Jewish refugees, which Rabbi S. M. Schiller (Schiller-Szinessy, b. in Alt-
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXIX.
There was one other voice raised at that time in behalf of the Jew and of Judaism, only to be prematurely silenced forever a few years afterwards. The most gifted poet which American Jewry has produced, Emma Lazarus ( b. in New York 1849; d. there 1887) was aroused, and her noble spirit reached its full height, by the stirring events of the martyrdom of the Russian Jew. Like so many other intelligent Jews in various countries, Emma Lazarus, the daughter of an old Sephardic family of social posit
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CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXX.
In Russian-Poland, as in Germany or Austria, members of the Jewish community pay a direct tax for the support of the rabbinate and the communal institutions, and while the Jewish taxpayers elect the officers who assess them, the tax or “etat” is collectible by force, i. e. , with the aid of the police authorities, if it is not paid voluntarily. Only those members of the community who pay comparatively larger sums are entitled to vote for communal officers, so that the poorer classes are taxed wi
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CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Jews of America were thus even better prepared to receive a large number of Jewish immigrants at the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century than they were ten years before. There was also at this time a smaller number and a much smaller proportion of helpless people among the Russian refugees, for those who lived in the interior of Russia, outside of the “pale of settlement”, and would have remained there had it not been for the expulsions, were as a rule active and fairly su
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CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The agitator among the immigrants has also rendered other highly useful service, besides the impetus which he gave to the development and popularization of the Yiddish press. The average laborer immigrant from Russia knew very little of newspapers, although practically every one of them could read his mother tongue—Judeo-German or Yiddish. But the Russian government did not permit at that time the publication of popular newspapers, and we find, for instance, in the year 1886, three daily papers
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
JOINT RESOLUTION IN RELATION TO TREATY NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA AS TO AMERICAN CITIZENS. Whereas , It is alleged that by the laws of the Russian Government, no Hebrew can hold real estate, which unjust discrimination is enforced against Hebrew citizens of the United States resident in Russia; and Whereas , The Russian Government has discriminated against one T. Rosenstrauss, a naturalized citizen of the United States, by prohibiting him from holding real estate after his purchasing and paying fo
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CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
As a consequence of the increase of immigration about the middle of the nineteenth century, the old dread of the foreigner was revived, and in the early fifties the Nativist politicians again became active. The new, like the earlier movement, was closely associated with the anti-Catholic propaganda. The new organization assumed the form of a secret society. It was organized probably, in 1850, in New York City, and in 1852 it was increased in membership by drawing largely from the old established
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CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Fortunately for France, for civilization and for the Jews, anti-Semitism was utterly defeated in the open political combat for the first time in modern history. The barrier erected by Liberty proved sufficiently strong to stem the tide of raging injustice; the very excitement caused by the wrong was the best warning against the danger which the revival of medieval bigotry brings to an enlightened country. Persecution and discrimination were again forced back and confined to the more shady corner
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CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The situation of the Jews in Roumania had been growing worse since the financial crisis of 1899, and in the last year of the century there was a stampede of Jews from that country, some of them walking hundreds of miles before they could find a place to rest or until they reached a port from which they could embark for England or America. Still, neither the Jewish immigration in general nor the immigration from Roumania could give the slightest cause for uneasiness to the government of the Unite
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CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Ambassador McCormick replied, ten days later, that it is “authoritatively denied that there is any want or suffering among Jews in Southwestern Russia and aid of any kind is unnecessary.” But the people here understood that the Ambassador reflected the official view of the Russian Government, and efforts to raise money for the thousands of families which were left destitute by pillage, and for the hundreds of widows and orphans of the martyrs, were soon made, and large sums were collected in New
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The American-Jewish Committee was organized with sixty members, and adopted a constitution (November 11, 1906), which begins: “The purpose of this committee is to prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of the Jews, and to alleviate the consequences of persecution. In the event of a threatened or actual denial or invasion of such rights, or when conditions calling for relief from calamities affecting Jews exist anywhere, correspondence may be entered into with those familiar with
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
In 1807 Ezekiel Hart, one of the four sons of Commissary Aaron Hart, was elected to represent Three Rivers in the Legislature. He declined to be sworn in according to the usual form, “on the true faith of a Christian,” but took the oath according to the Jewish custom, on the Pentateuch, and with his head covered. At once a storm of opposition arose, due, it is said, not to religious prejudice or intolerance, but to the fact that his political opponents saw in this an opportunity of making a part
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CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XL.
There were, as far as known, but very few Jews in modern Brazil, even under the humane and scholarly Emperor Dom Pedro II. (1825 – 91), who was well versed in Hebrew, and maintained friendly relations with several Jewish scholars in Europe. The immense country attracted but few Jews after the Emperor was deposed and a republican form of government instituted in 1889. There were some rumors at that time that General Floriano Peixotto, one of the leaders of the revolution, who was the first Vice-
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CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLI.
Constant Mayer ( b. in Besancon, France, 1832), the French painter, who arrived in the United States in 1857 and lived here more than a generation before he returned to his native country, was among the best known artists of his time here. Herman Naphtali Hyneman ( b. in Philadelphia, 1849), who studied for eight years in Germany and France, and George D. M. Peixotto ( b. in Cleveland, O. , 1857), eldest son of Benjamin F. Peixotto, are recognized as masters among American portrait painters, the
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CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLII.
The Hebrew periodical literature, which begins with Hirsch Bernstein’s ha-Zofah be-Erez ha-Hadashah (1870 – 76), which was mentioned in a former chapter, was never securely established in this country up to the present time. Most of the Hebrew Journals or magazines, like Deinard’s weekly ha-Leomi and Rosenzweig’s monthly Kadimah , existed for less than a year. The Hekal ha-Ibriyah , edited by N. B. Ettelson and S. L. Marcus in Chicago, appeared from 1877 to 1879 as a supplement to their Judeo-Ge
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CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
Jacob Gordin was at the head of a more serious school of Jewish dramatists in America, whose effort to introduce—also by translations and adaptations—the problem-play, the psychological play and the realistic play, on the Yiddish stage, began a new epoch, which is now practically ended. His good style and technique insured for some of his pieces a considerable popularity for a time, and they are now much played in the revived Yiddish theater of Russia. Z. Libin and L. Kobrin were for a time his
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CHAPTER XLIV.
CHAPTER XLIV.
The attempts to organize on a more general scale, and to consolidate or federate existing organizations, which are frequently made and are more often successful than in the preceding periods, are the clearest manifestation of the spirit of the times in American Jewry. In most of the large cities outside of New York the important local Jewish charities are now federated, and the plan of federation is continually gaining in favor. The federations, of which there are now more than a dozen, and many
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