Читать книгу The History of the Jewish People in America - Peter Wiernik - Страница 18

Table of Contents

The Old Testament spirit in New England—Roger Williams—The first Jew in Massachusetts—Judah Monis, instructor in Hebrew at Harvard—Newport—Jews from Holland bring there the first degrees of Masonry—The cemetery immortalized by Longfellow—Jacob Rodrigues Rivera introduces the manufacture of sperm oil—Aaron Lopez, the greatest merchant in America—Immigration from Portugal—Rabbi Isaac Touro—Visiting rabbis—First Jews in Connecticut—Philadelphia—Congregation Mickweh Israel—Easton’s wealthy Jews—Maryland—Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo—General Oglethorpe and the first Jews of Georgia—Joseph Ottolenghi—The Carolinas—Charleston.

Although “the Puritans of England and America appropriated the language of our judges and prophets” and the spirit of the Old Testament was the most potent force in the foundation and the conduct of the early Commonwealths of New England, still it was not a typical or recognized leader of those who deemed themselves members of a new Hebrew theocratic democracy, but rather an outcast from their ranks, who first granted full religious liberty to the Jews and bade them welcome. This man was Roger Williams (1600?–1684), the former clergyman of the Church of England, who later (1631) became a Puritan pastor in Salem, Mass., and was expelled for denying the right of the magistrates to punish Sabbath-breaking, and was four years later “banished from the jurisdiction of the Puritans of America, and driven into the wilderness to endure the severity of our northern winter and the bitter pangs of hunger.”8

There was at least one Jew in Massachusetts before the arrival of the first Jews in New Amsterdam, and he is mentioned only as being assisted—or forced—to quit the colony. The reference to him is dated May 3, 1649, when it is stated that the court allows Solomon Franco, the Jew, six shillings per week out of the treasury for ten weeks for subsistence till he can get his passage into Holland (see Kohut, The Jews of New England in “Publications,” XI, p. 78). Several other Jews are mentioned as having lived there in the latter part of the seventeenth and in the first three-quarters of the eighteenth centuries. But owing to the intolerance and religious zeal of the Puritans, they either moved to other parts or embraced Christianity. When a Jew named Joseph Frazon (or Frazier) died in Boston, in 1704, his body was sent to Newport for burial.

The most distinguished among the early converts was Judah Monis (born in Algiers about 1680; died in Northborough, Mass. in 1764). He was baptized in the College Hall at Cambridge, Mass., on March 22, 1722, and was afterward active in the cause of his new faith, although he observed throughout his life the Jewish Sabbath. He was an instructor in Hebrew at Harvard University, from 1722 till 1759, when on the death of his wife he resigned and removed to Northborough. Besides some insignificant missionary pamphlets, he was the author of the first Hebrew grammar printed in America (Boston, 1735).

It was in the smallest of the original colonies, which is now likewise the smallest State in the Union, Rhode Island, founded by the pioneer of religious liberty in the New World, that the Jews established their oldest congregation on the North American continent. Providence was founded in 1636, Portsmouth and Newport about two years later, and the last named place, which soon became one of the most important cities in the colonies, excelling even New York as a commercial center and port of entry until after the Revolution, began to attract Jews soon after their arrival in these parts of the country. The earliest authentic mention of Jews in Newport is in 1658, when fifteen Jewish families are said to have arrived from Holland, bringing with them the first degrees of Masonry which they proceeded to confer on Abraham Moses in the house of Mordecai Campanall.9 But there is reason to believe that Jews from New Amsterdam and Curaçao settled there a year or two before. A congregation seems to have been organized in 1658 under the name “Jeshuat Israel.” The cemetery, immortalized by Longfellow and Emma Lazarus, was acquired by Campanall and Moses Packeckoe, in 1677, but it is possible that there existed an earlier Jewish cemetery.

Still even in Rhode Island it was only tolerance; the recognition of equal rights was yet to come with the Declaration of Independence. In reply to a petition of the Jews, the General Assembly of Rhode Island, in 1684, affirmed the right of the Jews to settle in the colony, declaring that “they may expect as good protection here as any stranger being not of our nation residing among us in His Majesty’s colony ought to have, being obedient to His Majesty’s laws.”

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 with him from Portugal, and it soon became one of the leading industries; Newport, whose inhabitants were engaged in whale fishing, had seventeen manufactories of oil and candles and enjoyed a practical monopoly of this trade down to the Revolution.

Aaron Lopez (died May 28, 1782), who was Rivera’s son-in-law, became the great merchant prince of New England. (Ezra Stiles says of him, that for honor and extent of commerce he was probably surpassed by no merchant in America.) The advantages of this important seaport were quickly comprehended by this sagacious merchant, and to him in a larger degree than to any one else was due the rapid commercial development that followed. He was the means of inducing more than forty Jewish families to settle there, the heads of many of which were men of wealth, mercantile sagacity, high intelligence and enterprise. In fourteen years after Lopez settled there, Newport had 150 vessels engaged in trade with the West Indies alone, besides an extensive trade which was carried on as far as Africa and the Falkland Islands. The Jews were even then, nearly three hundred years after the expulsion, transferring to the liberal English colonies the wealth and the still more valuable business ability and commercial connections which they could not freely or safely employ as Marranos in Portugal. The emigration of secret Jews from that country increased after the great earthquake at Lisbon (1755), and a considerable portion went to Rhode Island. One of the vessels from that unhappy city, bound for Virginia, was driven into Narragansett Bay, and its Jewish passengers remained at Newport.

Isaac Touro (died Dec. 8, 1783) came from Jamaica to Newport, in 1760, to become the minister of its prosperous congregation, and occupied the position until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he returned to end his days in Jamaica. Until the time of his arrival worship was held in private houses, but in 1762 the congregation, which numbered between sixty and seventy members, decided to erect a Synagogue. The building, which is still standing, was completed and dedicated in 1763. There is evidence that the Jewish population of Newport, even before the Revolution, contained considerable German and Polish elements. According to one historian, the city numbered before the outbreak of hostilities 1,175 Jews—which was probably a majority of the Jews in all the colonies—while more than 300 worshipers attended the Synagogue.

Many Jewish rabbis from all parts of the world were attracted to Newport in those times. The above-named Ezra Stiles (1727–95), the famous president of Yale University, who was a preacher in Newport at that time, mentions several of them in his diary. He met one from Palestine in 1759, two from Poland, 1771 and 1772, respectively, a Rabbi Bosquila from Smyrna, a Rabbi Cohen from Jerusalem and Rabbi Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal (b. Hebron, Palestine, 1733; d. Barbadoes, 1777), who preached at Newport in Spanish in 1773, and became an intimate friend of the Christian theological scholar.

The arrival of a Jewish family from the West Indies to New Haven, Conn., in 1772, is noted by Stiles, who was a native of that place, in his diary as follows: “They are the first real Jews at that place with exception of the two brothers Pinto, who renounced Judaism and all religion.” This is substantially accurate in regard to New Haven, although one David, the Jew, is mentioned in the Hartford town records as early as 1659 (or 1650), and the residence of several Jews is implied in the entry which was made in the same records under date of September 2, 1661: “The same day ye Jews which at present live at John Marsh, his house, have liberty to sojourn in ye town for seven months.” They are mentioned at a subsequent period, too, which proves that they were permitted to remain longer than the allotted seven months. But all trace of them is lost afterwards, and almost two centuries had passed until the first Synagogue was erected in Hartford.

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The Jews of New Amsterdam who had difficulties with Peter Stuyvesant in 1655 about their right to trade on the South River, which was subsequently re-named the Delaware (see above, chapter 9) were probably the first to set foot in what later became the colony and still later the State of Pennsylvania. This was twenty years before William Penn (1644–1718) became part proprietor of West Jersey, and more than a quarter of a century before he came over to America (1682) and founded the city of Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which he received as a grant from the King of England in the preceding year.

The first Jewish resident of Philadelphia was Jonas Aaron, who was living there in 1703. A number of other Jews settled there in the first half of the eighteenth century and some of them, including David Franks (1720–93), Joseph Marks and Sampson Levy, became prominent in the life of the city. Isaac Miranda came there earlier (1710) and held several State offices, but he was a convert to Christianity, and his preferment cannot be considered a Jewish success. A German traveler mentions the Jews among the religious sects of Philadelphia in 1734. In 1738 Nathan Levy (1704–53) applied for a plot of ground to be used as a place of burial, and obtained it Sept. 25, 1740. This was the first Jewish cemetery in the city, and was henceforth known as the “Jews’ burying ground,” situated in Spruce street, near Ninth street. It later became the property of the Congregation Mickweh Israel, which had its beginnings about 1745 and is believed to have worshipped in a small house in Sterling alley. The question of building a Synagogue was raised in 1761, as a result of the influx of Jews from Spain and the West Indies, but nothing was then accomplished in that direction. In 1773, when Barnard Gratz (born in Germany, 1738; died in Baltimore, 1801) was parnas and Solomon Marache, treasurer, a subscription was started “in order to support our holy worship and establish it on a more solid foundation,” but no Synagogue was built until about ten years later. Barnard Gratz and his brother, Michael (b. 1740), with whom he came to America about 1755, were among the eight Jewish merchants of Philadelphia who signed the Non-Importation Resolution in 1765. The others were Benjamin Levy, David Franks, Sampson Levy, Hyman Levy, Jr.; Mathias Bush and Moses Mordecai.

Jews were to be found in Lancaster, Pa., as early as 1730, before the town and county were organized, and the name of Joseph Simon was preserved as the best known of the first arrivals. Myer Hart (d. about 1795) and his wife, Rachel, and their son, Michael (b. 1738), were one of the eleven original families that are classed as the founders of Easton, Pa., about 1750. Myer Hart heads the list of those furnishing material for the erection of a schoolhouse in Easton in 1755. He is first described as a shopkeeper and later as an innkeeper, and he was naturalized April 3, 1764. In 1780 his estate was valued at £2,095, and that of his son, Michael, at £2,261, these two being the heaviest taxed individuals in the county. At that period there were two other Jewish merchants residing at Easton, Barnard Levi and Joseph Nathan.

There is a tradition that Schafferstown, Pa., had a Synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in 1732, but the facts have not been verified, and there is a suspicion that the supposed Jews were German pietists who assumed Biblical names.

To the south of Pennsylvania the older colony of Maryland, which was established in 1634, “adopted religious freedom as the basis of the State;” but this boon was reserved for Christians only, although there is no record that the statutory death penalty for those who denied the trinity was ever carried out in practice. The physician, Jacob Lumbrozo (d. May, 1666), who hailed from Lisbon, Portugal, and came to Maryland about January, 1656, and later became an extensive land owner, was committed for blasphemy in 1658, but this did not prevent him from enjoying a lucrative practice and engaging in various mercantile pursuits in subsequent years. He was even granted letters of denization on Sept. 10, 1663, which vested him with all the privileges of a native or naturalized subject. But his case seems to have been exceptional, probably owing to his medical skill and his wealth. But in general, colonial Maryland was no place for Jews, and even after it became a part of the United States it was one of the last to remove the civil disabilities of its Jewish citizens.

Another Marrano physician from Lisbon, Dr. Samuel (Ribiero) Nuñez, who escaped from the clutches of the Inquisition and arrived, in 1733, in the newly founded colony of Georgia, found a more congenial place of refuge. Georgia was in respect to the Jews the reverse of New Netherlands; the trustees of the colony in England were opposed to permitting Jews to settle there, but General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696–1785), the Governor, was very friendly disposed towards them. Nuñez was one of forty Jewish immigrants who unexpectedly arrived at Savannah in the second vessel which reached the colony from England (July 11, 1733). The Governor, one of the noblest figures of colonial times, bade them welcome, and considered them a good acquisition to the new colony. The first settlers were of Spanish and Portuguese extraction,10 but Jews who apparently came from Germany took up their residence there less than a year afterwards. Both bands of settlers received equally liberal treatment, and they soon organized a congregation (1734). The first male white child born in the colony was a Jew, Isaac Minis. Abraham de Lyon, of Portugal, introduced the culture of grapes into Georgia in 1737, while others of the early settlers engaged in the cultivation and manufacture of silk, the knowledge of which they likewise brought with them from Portugal. A dispute with the trustees of the colony respecting the introduction of slaves caused an extensive emigration to South Carolina in 1741, and resulted in the dissolution of the congregation. But in 1751 a number of Jews returned to Georgia, and in the same year the trustees sent over Joseph Ottolenghi (d. after June, 1774) to superintend the somewhat extensive silk industry of the colony. Ottolenghi soon attained prominence in the political life of the colony and was elected a member of the General Assembly, where he served from 1761 to 1765. Several other Jews rendered distinguished services to Georgia, but they belong to the period of the Revolution, which will be treated separately in the following part. A new congregation was started in 1774.

“Jews, heathens and dissenters” were granted full liberty of conscience in the liberal charter which the celebrated English philosopher, John Locke (1632–1704) drew up for the governance of the Carolinas (1669), and the spirit of tolerance was always retained there. Still few Jews were attracted there at the beginning, and about thirty years later we know of only one Jew, Solomon Valentine, as living in Charleston. A few others followed him, and in 1703 a protest was raised against “Jew strangers” voting for members of the Assembly. About the middle of the eighteenth century the number of Jews in Charleston suddenly increased through the above-mentioned exodus from Georgia, and the first Synagogue of the Congregation Bet Elohim was established in 1750. Its first minister was Isaac da Costa, and among its earliest members were Joseph and Michael Tobias, Moses Cohen, Abraham da Costa, Moses Pimenta, David de Olivera, Mordecai Sheftal, Michael Lazarus and Abraham Nuñez Cardozo. The first Synagogue was a small building on Union street; its present edifice is situated at Hassell street. A Hebrew Benevolent Society, which still survives, was also organized at an early date. A German-Jewish congregation was also in existence in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Several prominent Jews of London purchased large tracts of land in South Carolina, near Fort Ninety-six, which became known as the “Jews’ Land.” Moses Lindo who arrived from London in 1756, became engaged in indigo manufacture, which he made one of the principal industries in the colony. Another London Jew, Francis Salvador (d. 1776), was the most prominent Jew in South Carolina at the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.