hello and welcome to another episode of jewish history lab today i'd like to spend some time
looking at the origins of the jews in the americas now we're all familiar with the famous voyage of
christopher columbus that of course coincided with the expulsion of the jews from spain
and one of the most fascinating questions regarding that specific moment in history
is the question of columbus's own identity he himself liked to kind of cultivate the idea
that he might possibly be of jewish extraction as the great historian cecil roth once put it the
mystery regarding columbus's origins is largely the outcome of his own mendacity i wish i lived
in a time when people still used words like mendacity at any rate and as a result it is
equally impossible to exclude or to confirm the hypothesis that he was descended from a jewish or
ex-jewish family he himself liked to you know use jewish phrases from time to time
and to have some kind of buried coded mysterious things in his signature and elsewhere to suggest
that perhaps he was of jewish origin he liked to use jewish phrases from time to time he liked to
um you know kind of bury coded things in his writings that suggested that perhaps
there was a jewish background and he famously for example pushed off the actual date of departure
in order that it should not fall within the inauspicious time of the jewish calendar
the nine days that begin at the beginning of the month of aven and at the ninth of avi actually
pushed off the departure so that it would not fall within those inauspicious calendar days
but without doubt columbus certainly cultivated relationships with many spanish jews and conversos
a case in point that well illustrates his relationship with these uh spanish jewish
and crypto jewish backers was the fact that after he embarked on his great voyage one of the
first letters he sent back were to two jewish sponsors luis de santagel and gabriel sanchez
furthermore he certainly included at least one jewish member on his crew one louis de torres who
was an interpreter who was baptized just before departure enabling him to actually take part in
this great mission when columbus landed at cuba de torres was actually one of the very first people
to actually set foot on the soil of the new world the europeans that is setting foot in the soil of
new world and he was dispatched by columbus to the interior of the island to search for gold
now it happens that he did not find gold but he did establish very good relations with the
indigenous people living there and he brought back something which would prove to be very profitable
he brought back accounts of how the natives in cuba like to roll tobacco leaves and then smoke
them so ironically and unfortunately it was this jewish individual who played a key role
in actually bringing the habit of smoking back to europe at any rate he ended up settling in cuba
one of the first jews on the soil of the new world perhaps the greatest historian
of the jews of america is jonathan sarna and he points out in one of his works that quote
the seeds of judaism sown in mid-17th century colonial africa fell from plants nurtured in
the soil of the iberian peninsula this is an especially important observation because
the earliest jews to arrive in the americas were essentially refugees from the horrific spanish
and portuguese inquisitions please have a look at this map which shows the spanish holdings in blue
shades and the portuguese holdings in greed shades now it's important to note that one other place is
especially significant for the eventual settlement of jews in the americas and that is independent
calvinist amsterdam amsterdam of course was not a catholic country it was a protestant country
and it had a uniquely mercantile approach to the entire endeavor of settling the americas
which actually favored the jews because of course they had a long association with
commerce furthermore the protestant ethic extended not only to work values but also
to a certain degree of toleration of difference which also was extremely helpful for the jews
so jews are settling in amsterdam they have a somewhat tenuous situation there but in general
they have tremendous freedoms associated with the expansion of the dutch west indies corporation
if we look here at the portuguese holdings in what would later become brazil the region of pernambuco
is especially important because in 1630 holland conquered these territories from the portuguese
and that allowed jews to openly establish their presence there as believing jews and not simply
as crypto jews pretending to be christian living in the region so we actually have a
an explosion of jewish activities in pernambuco in particular in the city of racifer which was
home to about 1200 jews in the early 17th century it was a huge number
of the european population living in that city jews constitute one-third which is rather
remarkable and they actually established quite a communal settlement there they had rabbis there
they had a synagogue and they had two schools i wondered why they had two schools perhaps one
was khasidish one was a little more modern i don't know actually it's kind of funny because normally
you would expect them to establish one school and two synagogues right because you always have
to have as the joko's one synagogue to pray in and one synagogue you wouldn't be caught dead in
at any rate this experiment which proved to be very successful for the jews of recife ended
in unfortunate tragedy because on january of 1654 the portuguese recaptured the region
and all of a sudden the jews found themselves under the control of the inquisition once again
they were given just three months to leave and the entire jewish community was dissolved as
jews found other places to live throughout the colonial region some of them returning back to
europe now this reconquest of recife in particular meant several things for jews around the world
first of all if we go back to europe there is a significant push from the jews of amsterdam to
gain admission to england we will recall that the jews were expelled from england in 1290
that was the result of you know a problem with money landing where the nobility was
much too indebted to jewish money lenders and they found it was more expedient to simply expel
them forever than to uh pay back their debts so the jews had been formally excluded from england
from the 13th century under pressure from amsterdam's jews on oliver cromwell the
ban on jews entering england was quietly lifted and actually a population in london began to
develop which was very significant of course would have much greater implications later on
in history but looking at the colonies we see that there are a few major new settlements that
are created out of the ruins of versified first of all in curacao in 1659 there were jews who were
already living there but the formal community was established in 1659 and also in cayenne
and suriname and these populations would later extend elsewhere in the caribbean jamaica was
established in the 18th century for example but most significantly i think on a demographic level
is the implications of the jews who made it from recife to a place called new amsterdam in 1654.
new amsterdam of course is new york which would be one of the greatest centers of jewish population
throughout the rest of the modern era now there were jews already living in north america prior
to this arrival in 1654 but they were you know isolated individuals that you know came and went
without leaving a lasting impact for example one joachim gowns who was a metallurgist and an
engineer who was living in roanoke in 1585 he was actually arrested and accused of blasphemy in 1589
and uh he didn't leave much of an impression in roanoke another jew was solomon franco who
arrived in boston in 1649 but he ended up leaving because he could not post bond for himself as
a new arrival in the country so we have just a couple of scattered individual jewish explorers
no real communities developing until september of 1654 a few months after recife is dissolved by the
portuguese where you have 23 impoverished jewish refugees on a boat called the saint catherine
landing in new york city harbor then new amsterdam 18 of them according to one account were women and
children so small group of bedraggled uh penniless refugees arriving in new york ended up becoming
the nucleus of the mighty jewish population here now they were met by this man peter stoyvasant who
i know what you're thinking you're looking at him and you're saying wait a minute are you
sure he's not jewish i mean look at that massive healthy yarmulke that the guy is wearing right
and i have to say you know it kind of looks good on him but he certainly was not jewish and
i think perhaps the reason why he wore it perhaps they're you know faith-based or some even fashion
statements but speaking for myself and personally i have to say that men of a certain age and a
certain receding hairline find that a large black yarmulka covers a multitude of sins you know what
i mean at any rate storyvisant was himself a deeply religious member of the dutch reformed
church he was a son of a minister and he himself was an elder in the church and he was aghast
at the idea of admitting jews to this new colony which only had 750 people living there at the time
this was not out of character for storyvisin he was intolerant of many other groups if they
weren't dutch reformed then he was not interested in promoting their settlement he was especially uh
you know irritated and energized over the lutherans and would not allow this christian
group to establish a congregation in new york at the time so when these jews arrived from asifa he
wrote to his bosses in amsterdam and said listen can we please expel these refugees they are to
quote from his letters deceitful repugnant hateful enemies blasphemers uh and he basically wanted to
have nothing to do with him but ultimately story was not lost to market forces jews in
amsterdam put a lot of pressure on the dutch west india company to allow the jews to remain there
they had suffered tremendous losses with their communities in recife it should be noted that the
dutch west india company also included jews among its shareholders and so stoi was not received a
reply that conceded that jews may not be the most ideal residents but nevertheless he was to permit
them to live there on the condition that they would take care of their own poor and that's
actually a fascinating kind of point because this is something that certainly has medieval origins
that the jews were very focused on building a social support network to make sure that
you know all of the jewish poor were cared for they developed a significantly sophisticated level
of charitable giving and distribution of alms that prevent the jews from becoming you know
utterly impoverished but it was underlined in their very first settlement in america that they
had to take care of their own poor and i believe we'll see this repeating itself generationally
as new waves of jewish refugees make their way to american shores and prior generations of migrants
feel the responsibility to make sure that they are cared for so uh stoyvezon was forced to
allow the jews and lucky for other groups because stovazant was ultimately a force to
grant similar concessions to quakers and even allow the hated lutherans to establish a church
he was ultimately removed from office when the territory was seeded to the british
in 1664 and new amsterdam formally became new york okay that's a very quick look at the origins
in the next lecture we're going to look at uh some of the major generations of migrations
to the americas if you enjoy this video i really hope that you will subscribe because it
it's kind of nice to see so many people subscribing and studying jewish history with me
and i guess that's about it thank you very much for watching
you