Mayor Abraham Beame today proclaimed the month of May as a “salute” to 200 years of Jewish life in New York City. The proclamation was read by the Mayor at a breakfast in his official residence, Gracie Mansion, which launched a program of tours of Jewish New York sponsored by the American Jewish Congress. The breakfast, attended by 80 persons, was hosted by the Mayor, the AJCongress and the city’s Bicentennial Corporation. Beame’s proclamation noted that no other city has as large a Jewish population as New York and “no other city has had its character so defined and its growth so enhanced by the presence of a large and energetic Jewish community.” Beame said the city’s Jewish contribution goes back to 1954. when 23 Sephardic Jews settled here and founded the city’s and country’s oldest synagogue, Shearith Israel, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
