India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

PART - 2
From Diaspora to the establishment of a Jewish Home
TK
Jews in America
Oscar Wilde is reported to have said that America was discovered

many times before Columbus, but the fact was always hushed

up. Be that as it may, even the man, Columbus himself a

Marrano, who discovered America on 12th October, 1492, had

five Jewish crew aboard his ship. It has been mentioned earlier

that Marranos were the Jews in Spain and Portugal who had

converted to Christianity under duress but practised their Jewish

rites and rituals secretly. Netherlands, a land of religious tolerance,

acted as a beacon of light in the all pervading darkness that

shrouded Europe, and a large number of Marranos who were

hounded out by the Council of Inquisition found a safe haven

here, and later crossed the Atlantic to reach the North-eastern

shores of America. Others, forced by the persecution under the

same ubiquitous arm of Inquisition, left their homes in Spain

and Portugal and headed not only for north-east American

shores but also towards Brazil in South America. The 23 Marranos

who moved out of Spain for Brazil were again expelled from the

port of Pernambuco (Zur Israel) by the Portuguese colonizers in

”1654 and set sail for North America. All the ships carrying the

Jews belonged to the Dutch West India Company. This motley

8r°up of fugitive Jews then boarded a ship ”St. Charles” under

CaPt. De la Morthe and arrived at New Netherlands, (later

called New England) and dropped anchor at the port of
114 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTE
R9
New Amsterdam, (later named New York), on the island of

Manhattan in September 1654. Simultaneously another batch

of Marranos landed at Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina.

There were two categories of Jews from Europe who came

to America. The first were the Lashkenasim who came from

Middle, Northern and Eastern Europe, mainly Germany, Poland

and Russia. The second, Sephardim, moved from Southern and

Western Europe. The word ’Sephardim’ is derived from the

word ’Shepard’ a place name in the Book of Obadiah in postBiblical

Jewish literature. The Lashkenasims spoke Ladino, a dialect

of Hebrew mixed Spanish, while the Jews from East Europe

were less educated and sedulously adhered to Talmud and Torah.

They were removed from the main communities and forced to

live in ”Shell”, an all Jewish town or village laid out in the

countryside. The Ghetto, on the other hand, was a part of the

town, a segregated and sequestered locality where the Jews

were permitted to live. It is an interesting but a little known fact

of history that the American Indians were thought to be the

direct descendants of the ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The Jewish

community around Amsterdam was called ’Shearith Israel’ while

the one which formed the apex platform of Jews solidarity and

forum for helping and unifying Jews of all opinions and practices

in Latin America was named ”B’nai Birth”. Some typical Hebrew

words in common use in both the continents were ”Hechal”

meaning Holy Arch ’Sefarim’ meaning Scrolls of Law; ”Kol Nidre”

meant Jews prayer, ”Kehilla” meant a religious Jewish congregation;

and ’Sholon Aleichem’ was the Jewish greeting. The word

’synagogue’ is derived from the Greek word ”Synagogue” which

means a bringing together or an assembly, unlike a church,

which means the Lord’s house or space for worship. The Jews

who landed at New Amsterdam were initially confined to a

Ghetto called ”Jews Alley” on Manhattan Island. They were

helped by the earlier settlers, the Jews of Amsterdam in Holland

called ”Burghers”.
The first leader of American Jewry was Asser Levi Van Swellen,

an Ashkenazi Jew, later called simply Asser Levi. He, with the

permission of the local Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, was allowed
^-» a JEWS /N /4wfR/C4 115

CHAP*” 9 _
wn one of the six slaughter houses licensed to operate in

l° York. This was located at the end of the Wall Street known

,groadway Shamble’. He was the first Jew to own real estate

3 America and that too in New York City. Ten years after the

’ rival of the 23 Jews in New Amsterdam in New Netherlands,

. r [_evi was one of the richest traders and citizens of the city,

-yhis was the time when the British warship arrived and the

Dutch Governor surrendered the colony from the Dutch West

Indies Company to His Royal Highness James, Duke of York,

who rechristened the city as New York, after his own name. The

Christian community in and around New York and New Port,

mostly Puritans, respected Jewish emphasis on learning and

inteilectualism, so much so that they introduced Hebrew as a

language in Harvard College which they had founded, a practice

which was followed by many Universities later, including Yale.
For the Jews fleeing the persecution in Europe, the United

States of America was an ideal destination. A country newly

born after a revolution and whose Constitution contained the

famous words of Thomas Jefferson, ”All men are born equal”

was one place where the Jews hoped to find a shelter and a

status of equality. But anti-Semitism still persisted amongst the

orthodox Christian settlers of Puritanical persuasion. Even an

enlightened author like Thomas Paine in his book The Age of

Reason felt that ”While Christians had to be cured of their belief

in Bible trash, the Jews had to be cured of their character.” Be

that as it may, many Jews had fought and helped in the

Revolution of 1776. Chief among them were Haym Salomon of

Philadelphia, Aaron Lopez of Newport, and Mordecai Sheftall of

Savannah. But prejudices die hard. A prominent leader of Jewish

community in Philadelphia, Benjamin Nones, who advised Jews

to forego some of their rituals and compulsory attendance at

tne Synagogues, tried his best to fill the cleavage between the

Jevvs and the Christians. The attack on Jews, however, continued

here also.
In spite of the tremendous contributions of the Jews in the

^merican War of Independence there had been a long list of

Cases of attacks on Jews, although the Constitution was profoundly
116 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER <
in their favour, despite great stirrings ail round, jews were not

quite sure what the new Republic meant to them, nor were the

Christians on what they wanted out of jews. During the American

revolution there was a great need for clothing, food, animals

wagons and equipment for Washington’s rag-tag army as also

for men who knew the financial needs of a war. The new

government had no money to pay the troops, but the Jews

came forward to advance the cash needed in return for lOUs

whose redemption was doubtful. Some Jewish merchants

particularly Gratz brothers of Philadelphia, volunteered to

purchase British goods badly needed by the troops, while some

Jew traders like Isaac Moses and Aaron Lopez fitted cannons to

their vessels to prey on British shipping. Benjamin Nones, a’

French Jew about whom much will come later, offered to enlist

in the Continental Army. He fought so gallantly in many battles

such as the siege of Savannah that he was promoted to the rank

of major commanding ”the Jews’ Company”. Haym Salomon

also mentioned later, who fled in 1772 from Poland to America

and played a leading role in the revolution, was a member of

the Sons of Liberty, and along with young revolutionaries

Kosciusko and Pulaski, worked behind locked doors for the

oncoming war. One of the longest highways in America is named

after Pulaski. He carried out many acts of sabotage against the

British and was captured by them. He escaped and acted as

Paymaster-General for the French forces fighting with the

Colonials against the British. Rightly called ”freedom’s financier”,

Salomon was as generous as could be with his money to the

nation, and financed the Continental Congress at Philadelphia.

He was the founding member of the Congregation Mikveh Israel

and Philadelphia’s first synagogue which he opened in 1783

after providing more than one-third of the building cost. He

died at the age of forty-five from a chronic lung disease, a direct

result of his war exertions. He left a huge legacy for charitable

causes, and fittingly on the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights,

during a dedication ceremony, his statue was erected in Chicago

where he is shown joining hands with George Washington

and Robert Morris, symbolizing the founding of a
**~ ,„ q /FWS /N AMERICA 117
BARTER 7 y
t’on of freedom. Even before the formal declaration of
^dependence on 4th July, 1776, during the early part of the
’ 3r when preliminary operations against the British had started,
Fthan Allen, a giant of a Jew, led his green Ahomitani Boys and
aptured the fort of Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775.
Antipathy to the Jews took many forms, ranging from verbal

diatribe to physical assaults. The Gazette of the United States

came out with the scathing attack on Benjamin Nones for being

a jew and a Republican, a supporter of what is today called the

Democratic party. Nones’ anguished reply to the attack was as

follows:
”I am a Jew. I glory in belonging to that persuasion, which

even its opponents, whether Christian, or Mahomedan, allow

to be of divine origin-of that persuasion on which Christianity

itself was originally founded and must ultimately rest, which

has preserved its faith secure and undefiled, for near three

thousand years-whose votaries have never murdered each

other in religious wars, or cherished the theological hatred

so general, so unextinguishable among those who revile

them....
”But I am a Jew I am so- and so were Abraham, and Isaac,

and Moses and the prophets, and so too were Christ and

his apostles. I feel no disgrace in ranking with such society,

however it may be subject to the illiberal buffoonery of such

men as your correspondents....
”I am a Republican! ...Among the nations of Europe we are

inhabitants everywhere - but citizens of nowhere unless in

Republics. Here, in France and in the Batavia Republic alone,

we are treated as men and as brethren. In monarchies we

live but to experience wrongs...”
”How then can a Jew but be a Republican? In America

particularly, unfeeling and ungrateful would he be, if he

were callous to the glorious and benevolent cause of the

difference between his situation in this land of freedom, and

among the proud and privileged law-givers of Europe.”
118 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTI
ER 9
! But the contribution of immigrant Jews to the well being of
I America continued with even greater vigour.
The following five Jews, despite all the disabilities heaped
upon them in their adopted homeland, did America proud. The
first was Isaac Toure, who took part at New Orleans in the 1812
war against France. A patriarch, prophet and a philanthropist,
he gave out innumerable charities to synagogues in every nook
and corner of the new country. The second was Solomon Etting
i of Maryland, a friend of President Jefferson, who helped in the
drafting of the Bill for Equality of Rights. His brother, Reuben
who was appointed Marshall for Maryland, also helped his
brother in his philanthropic work and the two spared no pains
J in helping the Jewish community and even the Christians no
J end. The third was Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jew to join the
li US Navy, who retired as a Commodore, the highest rank in the
!| Navy at the time. He abolished the flogging of sailors and faced
I a Court of Inquiry in 1857 on false charges ”and defended

J’j himself with success. An escort vessel to a destroyer of US Navy,

’! was named after him as USS Levy. The fourth Jew, Simon Simson
I1 founded the first Jewish hospital named Mount Sinai Hospital in
JI 1852 for benevolent, charitable and scientific purposes. The
j|j last, Mordecai Manuel Noah was a versatile journalist, politician,
ill playwright, diplomat, author, philanthropist, sheriff, surveyor of
I the Port of New York, lawyer, judge and many things rolled into
I one. He was appointed Ambassador to Tunis and founded a
colony for the Jews near Niagara and Buffalo, ”Avarat” named
II after the place where Noah’s ark settled in Turkey.
in The immigrant Jews helped each other after the arrival of

H the German Jews in 1840s and 1850s. A dozen youngmen

Ij’J applied in 1843 to the Odd Fellows Lodge but they were refused

v membership. These young Jews then met together and orgarised

’Uj a comparable body of their own, the independent ”Order of

!,:|,ii B’Nai B’Rith”. In the preamble of their constitution the founders

’’• proposed to do everything possible from uniting Israelites in the

!’•’ work of promoting their highest causes and those of humanity,

’,,• to visiting the sick and providing for widows and orphans. The

’i’ emphasis on ”humanity” by the founders of ”Order of B’Nai
CHAPTER 9
JEWS IN AMERICA 119
R’Rith” was a way of saying that they, the Jews who had been

, rcecj into an organisation of their own, were truer

esentatives of tne cause of a united mankind than Gentiles

f the Odd Fellows who had excluded them. This assertion

would recur over and over again for the next century or so, as

the quintessential response by the Jews to anti-Semitism. Many

more such organisations and higher membership followed. By

1849, some 50 Jewish organisations, charitable, social and

fraternal in New York with a membership far greater than that

of the Synagogues, sprang into existence. These societies gradually

became the major homes of organised Jewish life. The jews,

under the leadership of Isaac Mayer Wise, a Jewish resident of

Bohemia and a teacher and religious functionary in Radnitz,

struggled to become equal, and later surpassed even the

Americans in wealth and position. The life of Wise is the central

story of the ”German Jews” in America from their arrival until

around 1900, as the year of his death. By 1880s, three quarters

of all clothing business of all kinds in America was controlled by

the Jews. Even the rich Jews were later segregated due to their

success and wealth and consigned to their ’gilded ghettos’. The

German Jews who formed the back-bone of the economic

strength and rich enterprise and tried to Americanise themselves

were rebuffed initially, but by sheer perseverance later succeeded

to a degree. With the arrival of East European and Russian Jews

these rich Germans helped them to establish and prevented

them from returning home, where they were a burden on the

country and thus indirectly encouraged anti-Semitism. They were

taught English in place of their earlier German and Yiddish

language and helped to settle in non-conventional jobs, since

there was already unfounded resentment against the Jews
r\ • {J
Dominating the Wall Street. The new Jews were thus kept away

from New York.
Of about thirty-five million immigrants arriving in the United
States in the 50 years after the Civil War, more than two millions
were the Jews which comprised 15 percent of all European
Jewry, and nearly eight percent of all immigrants to the United
tates. The main cause of this immigration was over-population
120 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHART
ER 9
in Europe and later the hope, the ”push factor” and an even

stronger ”pull factor”, i.e., attraction for America where land for

farmers and industrialisation in cities was creating millions of

jobs. And lastly, the ”push factor” from anti-Semitism. These

jews were poor people, the peddlers and tailors and largely

uneducated, but rose in less than two generations to the very

apex of American life. They brought socialism and revolutionary

zeal, but soon got transformed into capitalists and moderates.

’More attached to their relatives, left behind and conscious of

anti-Semitism, as opposed to the ”German Jews” who were

partially absorbed, the ”Russian Jews” were intensely involved in

maintaining their separateness. The ”German Jews” had been

few and they had defined themselves in an open expanding

America and to a very great degree on its frontier. It was easy

for them to think of themselves as different from other Americans

only by religion. The ”Russian Jews” on the other hand came to

the city when America needed hands for the factSries and they

came in large numbers. These Jews and their children would

have far more trouble finding their way into America.
Serious anti-Semitism in America appeared only on the arrival

of the ”Russian Jews”. Though apparently targeted at them, it

was also equally affecting the ”German Jews” who were also

under direct fire. The ”German Jews” posing to Gentiles as

superior and more American than the ”Russian Jews”,

nevertheless, felt responsible for and looked after them. The

German and Russian Jews remained separate communities, the

Germans hoping that the Russians would, like them, become

”Americans of Jewish religious persuasion.” The Russians, however,

did not fall in line and remained trapped in their prejudices and

had to find their way out of this Ghetto. They saw no profit or

balm in respectability. A peculiar phenomenon existed in the

poor families of Jewish immigrants in America. The fathers of

low class large families, unable to fend for themselves, deserted

their duties and the mothers took over not only as the breadwinners

but also as keepers of the Jewish faith. Thus came the

invention of the concept of ’Jewish mother.’