First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World

How did Jewish settlers come to inhabit — and change — the New World? Jews in colonial America and the young United States, while only a tiny fraction of the population, significantly negotiated the freedoms offered by the new nation and contributed to the flowering of American culture. This presentation follows the trajectory of a people forced from their ancestral lands in Europe, as well as their homes in South America and the Caribbean, to their controversial arrival in New Amsterdam in 1654 to the unprecedented political freedoms they gained in the early 19th-century. This captivating presentation by the New-York Historical Society,  features archival documents, maps, ritual objects, rare portraits, and the 16th-century diary — lost for 80 years — of a Mexican Jewish man persecuted for his faith.

Register for Zoom link beginning Sept. 7.

Picture: Thomas Sully. Rebecca Gratz, 1831. Oil on panel. The Rosenbach Museum and Library.