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