Origin.

The history of Judaism in America began with the arrival of Dutch Jews at New Amsterdam in 1654. They had been active in the Dutch West India Company settlement in Brazil and were expelled when the Portuguese retook the post. The Netherlands had provided a place of refuge for the Sephardic Jews (those of Iberian descent) after Spain had expelled them in 1492 and Portugal in 1496. In the Netherlands they flourished as merchants and tradesmen. Early Clusters. There were no rabbis among these colonial Jews. This fact did not present much of an obstacle, however, because only ten adult males were needed to form a synagogue. As soon as they were granted the right to public worship in New York at the end of the seventeenth century, they established a congregation and by 1729 had built a house of worship. Others arrived in small groups, especially after...