The arrival of 23 Jews from Brazil in New Amsterdam in September 1654 to establish the first permanent Jewish settlement in this country was commemorated yesterday in a brief ceremony at the lower tip of Manhattan.
The event was sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society. It included a wreath-laying ceremony at the flagpole in Peter Minuit Plaza. A child, whose immigration was assisted by the United Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and by the New York Association for new Americans placed the wreath.
In the evening, a meeting was conducted at the Jewish Museum, now holding an exhibit of documentary materials on Jewish life on the lower East Side in the early years of the 20th Century. Prof. Robert D. Cross, chairman of the Columbia University history department, spoke on the contrasts between Jewish immigration to the United States and those of other ethnic and religious groups settling here.
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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.
