Jews in America: The First 500 Years

By Matthew B. Schwartz

Using a readable question-and-answer format, Jews in America: The First 500 Years presents the activities of Jews in America since the beginnings of European settlement. It tells something of the story of how Jews came to the "golden land" and what they have done here--men and women, scientists and athletes, soldiers and merchants, settlers and scholars. It is indeed a remarkable story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Aug 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532644139

Book preview

Introduction

For over two centuries after the War for Independence, America’s Jews have lived in a Golden Age. Like Athens in the time of Pericles and like Italy in its Renaissance, a blissfully fortunate conjunction of opportunities provided American Jews with nearly unlimited potential to develop and to produce, and the Jews responded magnificently in every area of science, culture, politics and business. The Jews brought to the United States a faith in the importance of human activity and of hard work both mental and physical. They believed that life is serious enough not to be frittered away on short term frivolities.

In the centuries when European settlers built the American colonies, the Old World was still beset with deep religious differences and intolerances that often erupted into bloody wars between factions or nations—Catholic against Protestant, like the brutal Huguenot wars in France or the devastating Thirty Years War in Germany. Spain and Portugal suffered the cruel tyranny of the Inquisition. For the Jews particularly, there were hardship, restriction and persecution. Jews were forbidden to live in England until the 1650’s, or in Spain and most of France, and they were often expelled from German towns. In Eastern Europe, they were subjected to persecution, and they suffered through traumas like the 1648 Cossack War and the Sabbatian heresy a few years later.

The first settlers in America came out of this milieu, and that America has been largely free of religious strife and oppression is due to a high minded group of founding fathers like George Washington, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who wrote laws assuring that the United States government would not countenance religious persecution. Also, the very diversity of immigration to America has made it difficult to single out one group for long term harassment of the sort which dyed Jewish History in Europe. And so far, although there has been anti-Semitism in the United States, it has been largely quiet, repressed and, most important, not violent.

The accomplishments of American Jews are far more than most people realize. They are indeed astonishing. This book presents pictures of some leading people and events in the history of American Jewish life—politicians, soldiers, scientists, athletes, people who sought to run away from Judaism or to come closer to it. Generation after generation of Jews migrated to the new world and made their way into American life—the Sephardim, the Germans, the Eastern Europeans. The challenges of adjustment to the American environment were usually met successfully within one or two generations. The greater internal challenge has not yet been resolved. The Jew has shown that he can live well as an American. But how does he maintain his Jewishness? As he became more Americanized, he sometimes paid less attention to those sources of internal strength that had sustained him through the ages. As America moves into the 21st century, it is clear that while the Jews must remain watchful of outside threats, the greater danger to the Golden Age of American Jews may be internal.

This book is constituted in the form of questions and answers aimed at depicting interesting people and events that are usually not well known but are worth knowing. The question and answer pattern is both ancient and widely used in Jewish literature harking back at least as far as the Passover Hagada and the Talmud. As a study method, it is highly recommended by expert educators both for focusing attention and as a memory aid.

1492–1802

Colonial Days

In later centuries, America would become a land of incomparable opportunity. However, in colonial times it still consisted of a few small weak colonies sitting along the Atlantic seaboard. Although distant from Europe, the colonies were ruled from the old country and were bound as well by its established social and religious prejudices. Most Jews who came to America in those days were of Sephardic roots, looking for a land where they might settle and work, and where they might rejuvenate a sense of an identity wounded and distorted by generations of persecution.

As late as the American Revolution, there were no more than 3,000 Jews in the 13 colonies. Charleston, South Carolina held the biggest Jewish community with New York and Philadelphia catching up. Some Jews were still devoted to their traditions, but many were not. In smaller towns, especially on the frontier, it was hard to keep up a Jewish life or to find a Jewish spouse and raise a Jewish family, although some did. There were no permanent rabbis, although a learned traveler would occasionally pay a brief visit.

Church and state were not separate, and laws often excluded Jews, Catholics, Quakers and other outsiders from holding political office or even voting. However, many did military duty, and colonists of different racial and religious backgrounds mingled in unaccustomed though not idyllic peace. Jews joined other colonists in business and trade both in towns and on the expanding frontier. A good percentage of Jews were educated, though more in secular than in traditional Jewish studies .

Above all, there was a sense of freedom provided by the promise of the endless frontier and the inkling of some feeling of fair play that was only beginning to develop. There was perhaps a sense in the air that when one stepped off the boat onto the shores of this New World, he had cast off the choking restraints and rigidities of the Old World.

After the American Revolution, the government of the new United States took an amazing and important step by guaranteeing, in its new Constitution, the basic human freedoms of its citizens, including the freedom of religion. While the constitution did not eliminate all anti-Semitism from people’s minds, it did assure the Jews the rights to vote, to hold Federal office, and to practice their faith without hindrance. This was a big step ahead of most European governments of that day, including England, where the Jews were still oppressed and constrained by restrictive laws and ancient prejudices. Frederick the Great of Prussia, supposedly one of the more cultured and enlightened of European monarchs, enforced anti-Jewish measures including old laws restricting their rights to conduct business, to live outside ghettos and even to marry. American Jews still faced problems at state and local levels, but a basic pattern of freedom had become part of the new nation’s way of life.

Q. Who were the first Hebrew speaking residents of America?

A. One prominent historian and archaeologist, Professor Cyrus Gordon, has claimed that certain ancient inscriptions found in eastern Tennessee and always thought of as Cherokee are actually Hebrew and were likely written by Jewish refugees from the Bar Kochba War in Judea in the early second century. In fact, however, most authorities agree that the first residents of North America fluent in Hebrew were Massachusetts Puritans like John Cotton, who were graduates of Oxford or Cambridge and very knowledgeable in Hebrew as well as Greek and Latin. When the first expedition was sent to New England to find a suitable site to settle a colony, the explorers reported to John Winthrop and his committee that they had found an excellent spot which the Indians called Naumkeag. Winthrop responded that this sounded like a fortunate place for a town because Naumkeag sounded like the Hebrew words Khek Nahum, which means bosom of consolation.

For Further Reading:

Cyrus H. Gordon, Before Columbus: Links Between the Old World and Ancient America, New York, Crown Publ. Inc,

1971

.

Samuel Eliot Morrison, Builders of the Bay Colony, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin Co.

1930

Q. Was Christopher Columbus a Jew?

A. The question of Columbus’ national and religious background has long been a matter of debate and remains so. American diplomat Oscar Straus discussed the topic with Spanish historians during a visit to that country in 1914, and biographers of Columbus today support a variety of points of view. Robert Fuson, translator of Columbus’ ship’s log, finds much evidence, albeit circumstantial, that points to a Jewish background. The Encyclopedia Judaica, while also not entirely sure, lists a number of strong indicators of a Jewish background. Columbus’ signature can be read as Hebrew letters, and he specifically instructed his son to sign his name the same way. He left money in his will to a Marrano beggar in Portugal. He was apparently in contact with Jewish leaders in Spain like Don Abraham Seignor and Don Isaac Abravanel. His real family name was Colon, a name used often by Spanish and Italian Jews. A leading Italian rabbi of Columbus’ time was Joseph Colon. Columbus was always very reticent about his family background, a behavior which would well suit a man of Jewish origin during the heyday of the Spanish Inquisition.

Salvador Da Madariaga, in his 1939 biography, finds the evidence for Columbus’ Jewishness overwhelming. In addition to proofs listed above, Da Madariaga points out that Columbus showed no loyalty to Genoa and even fought against it. This would indicate that he had no deep roots in Genoa and was likely of Spanish background. Also, Catalan Jews had long been interested in geography and map making. Columbus often discussed religion in his extant writings, citing Jewish sources and seeming, in Da Madariaga’s view, to be seeking a safe position between Jewish and Christian thought.

Gianni Granzotto, while generally praising Da Madariaga’s work, totally dismisses his views on Columbus and Judaism, arguing that the admiral’s family had lived in Genoa, where there were few Jews, for at least several generations, and that his father had been a keeper of the city gate and therefore not possibly Jewish. Samuel Eliot Morrison, in his Admiral of the Ocean Seas, has no doubt at all that Columbus was simply a Genoese. His ruddy coloring indicates a probable descent from the Teutonic invaders that toppled the Roman Empire a millenium before.

Kirkpatrick Sale too, in The Conquest of Paradise, 1990, writes that Columbus was probably Genoese and not of Jewish origin. However, he notes that there have been literally hundreds of articles offering different opinions on the matter, including claims of Greek, French and Polish background.

Famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal offers a very innovative theory in his book, The Secret Mission of Christopher Columbus, 1979. Columbus sailed from Spain on the very day that the Jews had been ordered by the government to quit the country. Perhaps, argues Wiesenthal, he was hoping, desperately, to find a place where Jews would be accepted and could live safely. He took the Hebrew speaking Luis De Torres with him in the hope of reaching Asiatic lands where Hebrew was known. It is curious too, Wiesenthal claims, that there were no churchmen on Columbus’ ships, and Columbus’ first message upon reaching the Canary islands en route back to Spain was sent not to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella but to two conversos, Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez, who had strongly backed the expedition. Also Columbus’ first wife seems to have been of Jewish descent.

For Further Reading:

Robert Fuson, The Log of Christopher Columbus, Camden Maine; Internal Marine Publishing Co.,

1987

.

Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, Boston; Little Brown and Co.,

1942

.

Salvador Da Madariaga, Christopher Columbus, London; Hollis and Carter

1949

.

Simon Wiesenthal, Sails of Hope: The Secret Mission of Christopher Columbus. New York; MacMillan Publ.,

1973

.

Q. When was the first auto da fe in America?

A. The Spanish Inquisition established itself in Mexico all too quickly after Hernando Cortez’s conquest of Montezuma’s Aztec kingdom, and it soon began its gruesome work of seeking out and punishing enemies of the faith. Several crypto-Jews had served in Cortez’s army and, in 1528, two of them, Hernando Alonso and Gonzalo De Morales, were publicly burned at the stake, accused of Judaizing activities. Alonso had received 80 acres of land as part of his share of the booty from the conquest of Mexico, and he had built up a very successful cattle ranch. Although himself of Jewish background and married to a daughter of Jewish converts to Christianity, it is unlikely that Alonso was much involved in Jewish practices.

Gonzalo De Morales was accused of having flogged a crucifix, based on testimony taken from his sister while under torture. Two other Jews on trial were reconciled with the church. Some historians have argued that Alonso and De Morales were burned for political reasons. Increases in trials and punishments of conversos beginning near the close of the sixteenth century attest both to the increasing immigration of conversos and to the growing reach of the Inquisition.

For Further Reading:

Seymour Liebman, The Jews in New Spain: Faith, Flame and the Inquisition, Coral Gables, University of Miami Press,

1970

.

Q. Who was the first Jew to set foot in an English colony in North America?

A. Joachim Gaunze (Gans), a mining engineer from Prague, came to England in 1581, at a time when Jews were not permitted to live there. He accompanied the expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to found a colony on Roanoke Island in 1585, 22 years before the founding of Jamestown. Several years later, back in England, he revealed his Jewish identity and spoke in Hebrew during a conversation with a clergyman. Gaunze was sent to be tried before the Privy Council in London, led by Lord Walsingham, for whom Gaunze had worked. The results of the hearing are unclear, but Gaunze soon left England and ultimately returned to Prague, where he died in 1619.

For Further Reading:

Jacob Marcus, United States Jewry, I:

21

.

Q. What strange product did Dr. Rodrigo Lopez sell in America?

A. Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, a converso of Portuguese birth, became private physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England. In addition, he was apparently a close supporter of Sir Francis Drake, helping him to maintain contact with the queen despite the intrigues of the court. About 1593, English ships captured two Spanish vessels bound for Peru, carrying a cargo of papal indulgences—documents by which the Roman church granted their holders absolution from sins. Elizabeth made a gift of these to Lopez who outfitted a ship to carry the documents to Spanish America, where they were sold at a good profit. Lopez was also granted monopolies in the import of aniseed and sumac.

All through his stay in England, Lopez involved himself in a variety of diplomatic intrigues and made his share of enemies. In 1596, he was accused, probably falsely, of trying to poison the queen. He was drawn and quartered after a trial which aroused great public interest at the time. Some scholars believe that William Shakespeare molded Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in his Merchant of Venice, after Dr. Lopez. The play appeared only a few months after Lopez’s execution.

For Further Reading:

Cecil Roth, History of the Jews of England, 1941.

Max Kohler, "Dr. Rodrigo Lopez: Queen Elizabeth’s Physician and His Relationship to America," PAJHS . XVII,

1909

,

9–25

.

Q. An early church in the village of Amozoc, Mexico has 4 crosses and 4 six-pointed stars on its dome. Why?

A. It is probable that conversos lived in some numbers around Amozoc in the 17th century. They probably had to contribute to the church so as to maintain their outward pose as good Catholics. However, they may also have used the six-pointed stars to alert converso travelers to the possibility of hospitality for Sabbaths and holidays.

For Further Reading:

Seymour B. Liebman, The Jews in New Spain: Faith, Flame and the Inquisition, Coral Gables, University of Miami Press,

1970

, p.

207

Q. Were there any Jews on the Mayflower ?

A. No, although there are records of an occasional Jew staying briefly in Massachusetts in the colonial period. In 1649, when a Jew, Solomon Franco arrived on a Dutch vessel, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts allowed him six shillings per week for ten weeks for his sustenance until he could find passage back to Holland. He eventually made his way to London where he lived as a Christian and married a Christian woman. A certain Rowland Gideon was listed as paying eighteen shillings in taxes for 1674. Gideon too, finally moved back to London and became a prosperous merchant. Probably the first permanent Jewish resident was Moses Michael Hays (1739–1805), who moved there in 1782, shortly after the American Revolution. He apparently hosted a small congregation in his house.

For Further Reading:

Isaac Fein, Boston—Where It All Began. Boston,

1976

.

Lee Friedman, Boston in American Jewish History, PAJHS. XLII,

1953

,

333

–

340

.

Q. Who was Maldonado Da Silva ?

A. Dr. Francis Maldonado Da Silva was burned as a Judaizer in a great auto-da-fe in Lima, Peru in 1639. Raised in Argentina as a Christian by parents of Jewish descent, he returned to Judaism, which he practiced secretly until he was betrayed to the Inquisition. His career closely parallels that of the more famous Luis de Carvajal in Mexico four decades earlier.

For Further Reading:

Marcus, CAJ, I,

60

Q. Who was Gonzalo Diaz Santillan?

A. Portuguese born Gonzalo Diaz Santillan was murdered by fellow conversos in Mexico in 1648. He had been extorting money from them by threatening to denounce them to the Inquisition for their Judaizing practices. His body was exhumed and burned by the Inquisition on April 11, 1649. The Holy Office was busy enough in Mexico, persecuting crypto-Jews as well as a variety of Lutherans, blasphemers, witches and others. Informers like Santillan have been a problem for Jews through the ages, whether the tale-bearing was in matters of religion or politics. The Talmud refers to the dilatores of the Roman period.

For Further Reading:

Arnold Wiznitzer, Crypto-Jews in Mexico in the Seventeenth Century, AJHQ, LI,

1962

,

222

–

268

Q. Who was the first Jew in New York?

A. The honor is usually accorded to Asser Levy and a small group of refugees, who came to what was then called New Amsterdam in 1654, fleeing from Brazil after it fell to the Portuguese. However, in fact, Jacob Bar Simon, a Dutch Jew, was sent to New Amsterdam from Holland by the Dutch Jewish leaders, a few months earlier, to determine the possibilities for Jewish settlement and arrived some weeks before Levy’s group. Another Jew, Solomon Pieterson, had preceded even Bar Simon. by a short time.

For Further Reading:

Marcus, EAJ, I, p.

24

f.

Q. Why did few Jews settle in colonial Virginia?

A. A certain John Levy owned land in James Town City County in 1648, and some early settlers with Spanish names may have had Jewish antecedents. Moses Nehemiah, in the 1650’s, is the first Jew to have permanent residence in Virginia. The colony, however, did not attract many Jews for two reasons. First, Virginia was largely rural, and there were few business opportunities other than in farming. Williamsburg, the capital, had only about 722 white residents at the time of the American Revolution. Second, the Anglican Church dominated the colony and made life difficult for non-Anglicans including other sorts of Protestants.

For Further Reading:

Jacob Marcus, The Colonial American Jew.

1492–1776

. Detroit: Wayne State University Press,

1970

.

Q. Who was the first owner of Labrador?

A. Several ships belonging to Joseph De La Penja, a Jewish merchant of Rotterdam, touched shore in Labrador in 1677, and he claimed the as yet unexplored land for his ruler, William of Orange, who was also about to become the King of England. Some years later, De La Penja happened to save the King’s life when the latter’s ship foundered in a storm. As a reward, King William granted Labrador in perpetuity to De La Penja. No effort, however, was ever made by De La Penja or his heirs to follow through on the gift. Only in the early twentieth century did his descendants, including Isaac De La Penja, a cantor, apply to the British government to verify the family’s title to the land.

For Further Reading:

B.G. Sack, History of the Jews in Canada, Montreal,

1965

.

Q. What Jew was a governor in the West Indies in the 17th century?

A. Jews settled in the Danish owned island of St. Thomas as early as the 1680’s, and from 1684 to 1686, its governor was Gabriel Milan, a Jewish adventurer who had converted to Christianity. Milan’s despotic rule led to his removal from office and his execution in Copenhagen in 1689.

For Further Reading:

Jacob Marcus, The Colonial American Jew, I, p.

143

.

Q. Did any Jews sail with Captain Kidd ?

A. In 1696, Captain William Kidd set out from New York in the Adventure to round up pirates, but soon turned pirate himself, one of history’s most notorious. Benjamin Franks, related to the well known colonial Jewish Franks family, had joined the crew of the Adventure when it first sailed from New York, planning to journey to India and try to recoup some large business losses he had incurred while living in the West Indies. After Kidd turned pirate, Franks persuaded the captain to let him go ashore at Carwar, about 350 miles from Bombay, by giving him a beaver hat. The crew was growing unhappy with Kidd, and he hesitated to let anyone go ashore.

Franks’ version of the story was presented in a legal deposition taken in Bombay, October 20, 1697. Franks swore to the truth of his statements on the Old Testament. He later settled in New York.

For Further Reading:

Samuel Oppenheim, Notes, PAJHS, XXXI,

1928

, p.

229

–

236

.

Q. What is the earliest known document to mention a Jewish religious functionary in North America ?

A. On September 13, 1710, Abraham Haim De Lucena of New York, Minister of the Jewish Nation, sent a petition to Governor Robert Hunter mentioning that De Lucena’s predecessors had been exempted from civic and military service, and presumably he should be too. Thus, the Jewish spiritual leaders probably as early as the 17th century held a position comparable to the Christian in at least one of the English colonies.

For Further Reading:

Abraham J. Karp, Haven and Home, New York, Schocken Books,

1985

, p.

67

.

Q. When was the first mass immigration of Jews to America ?

A. The honor of being the first mass migration should probably be bestowed on the hundred or so Jews who came from England to Savannah, Georgia in 1733, shortly after the colony was founded. The leaders. including founder James Oglethorpe, were not thrilled about having so many Jews in their midst, although they were preferable to Catholics. Many soon moved on to more welcome sites. Others like the Sheftall family stayed on to play a notable role in the history of early Georgia.

For Further Reading:

Marcus. EAJ. II,

392

–

393

.

Q. Who was the first Jew to graduate from an American college ?

A. Judah Monis received an M.A. from Harvard in regard of a Hebrew teaching textbook which he wrote. Monis went on to teach Hebrew at Harvard; however, to qualify for that position he had to convert to Christianity, which he did. His book, The Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue, was published in 1735.

Monis was valued by the Puritans for his knowledge of Hebrew. However, students complained that he was a poor teacher and that his book, which he used as a classroom text, was too expensive. In the copy that still survives, the title page was amended by a student: Composed and accurately corrected by Judas Monis, M.A. was changed to Confuted and accurately corrupted by Judah Monis. Maker of Asses.

For Further Reading:

Marcus EAJ, .

107

f.

Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews of America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A History, NY; Simon and Schuster,

1989

.

Q. How did the great Puritan minister Cotton Mather begin his book, Magnalia Christi Americani?

A. Overcoming a childhood speech defect, Cotton Mather became a leading preacher and theologian in early New England like his father and grandfather before him. Study of the classical languages was fundamental to a Puritan education, and Mather studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

The Magnalia was a history of the church in America aimed at serving the enhancement of Faith in Europe as well as in the colonies. It begins with the Hebrew letters, aleph, yod, heh, the abbreviation for "im yirtze hashem" (God willing). This was equivalent to Latin D.V. (deo volente), which was often placed at the start of a book and which expressed the author’s reliance on divine grace.

Mather cites Jewish biblical commentators in the Magnalia. For example, in explaining the Hebrew word kippod, used in Isaiah 14:23, he relates that Rashi (1040–1104) translates it as owl and that R. David Kimchi (1160–1235) as snail, although Mather prefers bittern. In this instance Mather was not wholly accurate. Rashi in fact, translates kippod into Old French hericon or hedgehog, while R. David Kimchi, referring to both Arabic and French, says that his father R. Joseph translated kippod as turtle, while he himself believes kippod to be a desert bird. Mather’s chapter on the worthy men of New England carries a Hebrew expression, baalei nefesh (worthy men) in its title.

The Puritans thinkers had a strong sense of the Hebrew scriptures and likened their own settlement in the American wilderness to the forty years of the Israelites’ wandering in the Sinai Wilderness. This did not necessarily mean any special love toward Jewish contemporaries, of whom few if any lived in Massachusetts in Mather’s day.

For Further Reading:

Ralph Boas, Cotton Mather: Keeper of the Puritan Conscience, New York, Harper,

1928

Robert Middlekauf, The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, New York, Oxford University Press,

1971

.

Q. What is the oldest known extant Jewish structure in the thirteen colonies?

A. According to historian Rabbi David De Sola Pool, it is a trading post built about 1720 near Newburgh, New York and operated by the Gomez family, the most influential Jews of New York in those days.

Family tradition maintains that Isaac Gomez, a converso and a Spanish nobleman, managed to send his wife and infant son, Moses, to France just before he was himself seized and imprisoned by the Inquisition. The name Lewis was added to baby Moses’ name in honor of King Louis XIV of France, who gave the Gomez family asylum in his kingdom. Lewis Gomez arrived in New York with his large progeny about 1703 and prospered in the import-export business. Expanding into trade with the Indians, the Gomezes bought large tracts of land up the Hudson River, building a trading post of stone six miles north of the present day Newburgh about 1720. Several Indian trails converged there on a spot they believed to be sacred. The nearby brook was for years called Jew’s Creek.

For Further Reading:

David De Sola Pool, Portraits Etched in Stone, NY; Columbia University Press,

1952

.

Marcus. USJ

1776

–

1985

, I:

35

Q. In what American colony were Jews first formally permitted to vote?

A. The charter for Carolina written by philosopher John Locke in 1663, allowed Jews to vote, and Jews voted in Charleston at least as early as 1702. However, in 1721 South Carolina enacted new voting laws which made it impossible for Jews to vote or be elected to the Assembly. In early New York, Jews voted for some years but lost their franchise in 1737. Jews throughout the colonies did not begin to gain full political rights until after the American revolution.

For Further Reading:

Lawrence Fuchs, The Political Behavior of American Jews. Glencoe, IL; The Free Press,

1956

.

Q. Who was the first Jewish criminal to be executed in North America?

A. In New York in 1727, a certain Moses Susman was brought to trial for stealing Gold Silver money rings etc. (sic.) from Moses Levy. The court appointed an interpreter since Susman spoke no English. Apparently, Susman’s guilt was very clear, for the jury pronounced him guilty without leaving the courtroom. Susman was executed by hanging several weeks later, not an unusual punishment by the harsh standards of the times.

For Further Reading:

Morris Schappes, A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States, 1654–1865, New York, Schocken Books,

1971

.

Q. Why did Sir Alexander Cuming, a Scottish nobleman, want to settle 300,000 Jewish families on the American frontier in 1750?

A. Professor Jacob Marcus reports a letter written in 1750 by Sir Alexander Cuming to King George II of England, proposing to settle 300,000 Jews in the Cherokee Mountains (probably meaning the Southern Appalachians). Cuming claimed ownership of the mountains based on his visit there twenty years before. The Jews, as honest and industrious subjects of King George would, he argued, help pay off England’s national debt of £80,000,000. Another £50,000 would go to Cuming and pay his way out of debtor’s prison in London where he was when he wrote the letter. Cuming’s scheme was outlandish even in an age of discovery when utopian literature was much in vogue. There is no reason to believe that the government ever answered his letter.

For Further Reading:

Jacob Marcus, American Jewry: Documents, Eighteenth Century. Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press,

1959

. p.

203

f.

Q. What is Jacob and the Indians?

A. Stephen St. Vincent Benet (1898–1943) wrote a short story entitled Jacob and the Indians. It recounts the life of Jacob Stein, a fictional Jewish immigrant who traveled among the Indians in the mid-18th century. Although Stein is fictional, parts of the story are based on historical events. For example, Chapman Abraham, a Jewish trader, was captured by Pontiac’s Indians in 1763 and tied to a stake to be burned to death. As the heat grew more intense, Abraham called for a drink of water, but it was too hot, and Abraham spat it in the Indian’s face. Thinking that Abraham was either very brave or very insane the Indians released him.

For Further Reading:

Jacob Marcus, EAJ. I p.

229

Q. What was the first Jewish day school in America?

A. In the great upsurge of day schools in the latter part of the twentieth century, it should be remembered that Congregation Shearith Israel of New York conducted a day school as early as 1755. The pupils studied three hours of Jewish subjects and two hours of Spanish, English, and arithmetic. Jews well versed in Judaism were few in the United States, but by 1762, the school had secured the services of a good scholar, Abraham Israel Abrahams. His yearly salary was £20 for teaching poor students plus tuition payments from the well-to-do. The school lasted until the revolution, when most Jews left New York during the British occupation. There may have been some formal teaching even before 1755, but no record remains. The Shearith Israel opened schools twice in the 19th century, 1808–1821 and 1855–1856. In 1842, Reverend S.M. Isaac reorganized the afternoon school of New York’s Congregation Bnai Jeshurun into a religious and secular day school which, despite a good scholastic showing, closed in 1847 due to financial difficulties. In 1847–1848, three Orthodox German synagogues opened a school for 250 students under the leadership of Rabbi Max Lilienthal, but the school fell apart after a year. The synagogues opened their own separate day schools, one of which lasted till 1857.

This was all at a time when most children were educated either at parochial or private schools. General public schools were not yet the norm. Day schools declined as public schools grew and became secularized by about 1860.

For Further Reading:

Hyman Grinstein, The Jewish Community of New York.

1656

–

1850

. Philadelphia, JPS,

1945

.

Q. Who was the first Jew in Canada?

A. As a French colony until 1756, early Canada was French in culture, language, and in its attachment to the Catholic Church. Jews were forbidden to settle in French colonies, although there may have been a few early settlers in Canada with some sort of Jewish ancestry. Some historians believe that the first viceroy of New France, Henri de Levy, Duke of Ventadons, may have been of Jewish descent. His distant descendant, General de Levis, was the second in command to General Marquis de Montcalm during the French-Indian War.

A case in 1738 provides the first clear record of a Jew in Canada. A young sailor by the name of Jacques La Fargue landed in Quebec. In fact, she turned out to be Esther Brandeau, a Jewish girl from Bayonne, France, who told a fantastic story. She had been shipwrecked en route from Bayonne to Amsterdam in 1733. Resolved not to return to the restrictions of her parental home, she assumed the guise of Jacques and served as a sailor on several ships before coming to Quebec.

Canadian archives go on to tell that her case became a real problem for the authorities. Unsuccessful in their efforts to force her to convert to Catholicism, they sought instructions from the government in