First Jewish Migrants to New World Were Hijack Victims, Historian Says

The first Jewish immigrants to America came here because they had been sidetracked by hijackers 316 years ago, a group of 200 New York Jews was told here yesterday by Rabbi Avram Goodman, president of the American Jewish Historical Society. The 200 New York Jews made a walking tour of Jewish historical sites in lower Manhattan, starting in Peter Minuit Plaza at the southern tip of Manhattan. A flag pole and a plaque mark the site there of the landing of 23 Jews in 1654, the first to come to New Amsterdam. Rabbi Goodman described the hijacking in a brief discourse to the walkers before they started their tour. He said that the 23 Jews, seeking to escape Portuguese oppression in Recife, Brazil, set sail for what they hoped would be a friendlier haven in Dutch-held Curacao. Their boat was hijacked on the high seas but they were saved by the St. Charles, a French ship, which dropped them off, destitute, in New Amsterdam.

The newcomers were as poorly received by the Dutch as they had been in Brazil, Rabbi Goodman recounted, adding that they were barred from maintaining synagogues, retail stores or fur businesses and denied welfare aid. But, he said, under the leadership of Asser Levy, one of their number, they eventually achieved first-class citizenship. The marchers then walked past the site of the first synagogue, now a parking lot, and under the Brooklyn Bridge to Chatham Square where there is still a part of the first Jewish cemetery in this country.