Early American Jewry

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marcus, Jacob Rader, 1896-1995.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--United States--History.

Jews.

Jews--Canada--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

2 volumes : illustrations, portraits, facsimile ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1951-53.

Contents:

1. Background for the first American Jewish community, 1654 : What motivated Jews to come to the colonies ; Population statistics ; Conditions in Islamic lands ; Poland ; Messianism ; Italy ; Germany ; Beginnings of tolerance ; Commercial Revolution ; Mercantilism ; Economic tolerance ; Holland ; England ; Marranos in America ; Brazil ; New Amsterdam

2. New Amsterdam, 1654-1755 : Earliest settler ; Arrivals of 1654 ; "Charter" of 1655 ; Trading rights ; Taxation and liberties ; Owning real estate ; Military service ; Burgher privilege ; Disabilities

3. New York, 1664-1755 : English conquest of New Amsterdam ; Restrictions ; Trade on the Hudson ;Denization, naturalization, freedom of the city ; Protestant Marranos ; Service in the militia ; Religious life ; Study of Hebrew ; The "rabbi" ; Religious freedom ; Philanthropy ; Merchants and shippers ; Building the synagogue ; Indian traders ; Social and business life of the Frankses ; Inter-marriage ; Economic reverses of merchants

4. New York, 1755-1784 : Sutlers during the French and Indian War ; Indian massacres ; Manuel Josephson and John Maylem, the poet ; The travelling circumciser ; Religious education ; Qualifications of a hazzan ; The schoolteacher ; Commerce during the French and Indian War ; A Long Island merchant assimilates ; Gershom Mendes Seixas, the "rabbi" ; A patriotic greeting to the governor of the state

5. New England, 1649-1759 : Puritain intolerance of Jews ; Coming of the first Jew ; Early Jewish settlers ; Conversion ; A Hebrew teacher at Harvard ; The tobacco and snuff business ; Absence of community organization in Massachusetts ; Beginnings of Rhode Island Jewry ; Roger Williams' concept of tolerance ; Jews permitted to carry on trade ; Building the Newport synagogue

6. New England, 1759-1775 : The school building ; Almsgiving ; Marrano refugees ; Economic relations with New York ; Wholesalers ; Slave trade ; Denial of naturalization rights ; Spermaceti candle "trust" ; Trade with Europe, the West Indies, and the North American colonies

7. New England: Rhode Island, 1775-1781 : Merchants and their factors ; Aaron Lopez and the whaling industry ; Economic hazars of the merchant-shipper ; Loyalty oaths during the Revolution ; Patriots and Tories

8. New England: Connecticut, 1775-1781 : Patriot refugees ; Beginnings of Jewry in the colony ; Difficulties in trading because of the Navigation Acts ; Christian exclusivism and the absence of Jewish congregational life ; A proposal of marriage ; Commerce during the Revolution ; Problem of transporting goods ; British and Tory raids on the coast towns ; Assimilation of the village Jew ; Currency inflation and financial distress ; The village shopkeeper

9. New England, 1779-1791 : Newport refugees in Massachusetts ; The merchant turned farmer ; Newport under enemy occupation ; Problems with privateers ; Rising inflation ; Masonry ; A Massachusetts businessman ; The theater ; Messenger from Palestine ; A Christian Hebraist ; The rabbi's portrait ; Death of a merchant-shipper

10. Canada: the fourteenth colony, 1749-1763 : Jews under the French regime ; Halifax boom ; Abraham Gradis, purveyor to the French armed services ; An English naval officer at the conquest ; Coming of the commissary officers ; Problems of a ship owner ; Supplying the army posts ; A clerk and his employer ; Trade among the merchants ; The rise of Aaron Hart ; An absconding merchant ; Economic injustice under military government

11. Canada: the fourteenth colony, 1763-1775 : Quarrels among the Jewish merchants ; A shohet becomes a businessman ; Trade between New York and Canada ; Credits and collections ; The travelling merchant ; The midwife ; Intermarriage ; Consortium of army purveyors ; Indian goods, fur trade, and the West ; Capture by Indians at the time of the Pontiac uprising ; Hazards of the fur trades ; Commercial rivalry ; Barter ; The rum and the wheat trade

12. Canada: the fourteenth colony, 1775-1794 : War speculation in wheat and flour ; An army commissary during the Revolution ; Loyalists and American patriots ; Jewish support of a missionary priest ; A "co-operative" store ; Petition of a British patriot fur trader ; A secular Jew ; Education of a boy away from home ; Immigrant's English ; Cultural background of a Canadian Jew ; Aaron Hart's program for good local government ; Anti-Jewish prejudices ; Itinerary and details of a trip to the States ; Education of a physician ; Story of a great Canadian merchants.

v. 2. 1. Pennsylvania, 1734 : Coming of the Jews to Philadelphia ; Isaac Miranda, "fashionable Christian proselyte" ; Jewish settlers in the outlying villages ; Beginning of the Jewish community in Philadelphia / Nathan Levy, the merchant the Levys in society ; David Franks as "assimilationist" ; The coming of Barnard Gratz / Hannah Moses ; a Jewish businesswoman ; Michael Gratz arrives in America from India and England

2. Pennsylvania, 1771 : The Gratzes in foreign commerce ; Indian trading, fur buying, and speculation in land-business career of David Franks before the revolution ; Jews among "the suff'ring traders" ; compensatory land grants ; Moses Franks, merchant and lobbyist-Joseph Simon, frontier merchant- proposed trans-Allegheny land settlements and colonies ; control of the western trade-dreams of landed empire

3. Pennsylvania, 1771 : Rogues, transported criminals, and itinerant poor ; messengers from Palestine- absconding businessmen ; indentured servants ; the Lancaster Jewish group ; Sabbath observance in the back country ; the Philadelphia synagogue takes on new life ; John Phillips, shohet, merchant, and blockade-runner

4. Pennsylvania, 1776 : Benjamin Levy and Robert Morris ; early Maryland Jewry ; Jacob Lumbrozo arrested and charged with Blasphemy ; political disabilities in Maryland ; Mathias Bush, Philadelphia merchant ; quarrels between old-timers and "new Jews" ; Lieutenant Colonel Solomon Bush of the revolutionary army ; Bush as "diploma" in London ; masonic activity of the colonel

5. Pennsylvania, 1777 : Jacob Philadelphia ; his scheme for a German-American trading corporation ; the Franks consortium in the French and Indian war ; David Franks as commissary for British prisoners in the hands of the Americans ; his daughter Rebecca a partisan of the British ; Myer Hart of Easton, an agent of Franks ; Joseph Simon also an agent to supply the prisoners

6. Pennsylvania, 1779 : Rebecca Franks and the Meschianza ; General Charles Lee and Rebecca ; David Franks arrested for Toryism ; Franks banished ; Rebecca retails the latest New York gossip ; the last days of David Franks

7. Pennsylvania, 1781 : Rachel Gratz in Lancaster ; Benjamin Seixas does business in Philadelphia for Aaron Lopez ; the Philadelphia synagogue again re-organized by emigres ; trouble with the intolerant German Reformed church ; Why the Jews sold their lot and moved away from the neighborhood of the church ; a new synagogue is built and dedicated

8. Pennsylvania, 1782 : The controversy about the merit of building a monument to Haym Salomon ; the legendary story of Salomon ; the facts about Salomon ; his career as underground agent in British-occupied New York ; Salomon is discovered and flees to Philadelphia ; he becomes a broker for the French army ; Salomon is employed by Robert Morris to sell bills of exchange ; toward the end of the war Salomon turns to commerce and trading ; he lends money to James Madison ; Eleazar Levy, Salomon's friend, loses money at west point ; Salomon sends money to his family in Poland ; he plays an active part in the Philadelphia Jewish community ; Salomon initiates a protest against an illiberal clause in the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 ; the achievements of Salomon, symbol of the Jew in the Revolution

9. Virginia, 1658-1786 : Why there was no early Jewish community in Virginia ; economic background ; no rights for Jews in the proposed colony of "Georgia" in Virginia ; no political rights for Jews in Virginia ; coming of the first Jewish businessmen ; Enoch Lyon serves as agent for Aaron Lopez ; the Gratzes in Virginia ; Michael Gratz and George Rogers Clark ; the Jews secure political rights ; importance of the Virginia act for establishing religious freedom ; the beginnings of the Richmond Jewish community ; Daniel Boone surveys land for Cohen AND Isaacs ; high cultural level of Richmond Jewry

10. Virginia, 1786-1789 : Jacob Mordecai ; the failure of the firm of Isaac Moses, Samuel Myers, and Moses Myers ; Samuel and Moses Myers collect debts in Virginia ; they consider settling in that state

Norfolk selected as the locale of the new firm ; the Jews of Richmond ; an early American Purim celebration ; organization of congregation Beth Shalome

11. South Carolina, 1690-1776 : The liberal Lockean Fundamental constitutions in the Carolinas ; the first Jews come to Charlestown ; political disabilities ; the beginnings of congregation Beth Elohim ; Isaac DaCosta, leader of Charlestown Jewry ; Moses Lopez of Newport describes the south Carolina capital in 1764 ; Moses Lindo, the indigo expert ; Charlestown Jews support Rhode Island College ; Joshua Hart and his daughter Ester ; Abraham N. Seixas, merchant, soldier, and rhymester

12. North and south Carolina, 1776-1790 : Francis Salvador, planter and patriot ; Mordecai Myers, Georgetown merchant ; why so few Jews settled in early North Carolina ; Michael Levy, merchant of the Revolutionary war period ; early synagogues of Charlestown ; Hebrew Benevolent society ; the German Jewish Congregation

13. Georgia, 1733-1768 : The prospect of close settlement of Jews in Georgia ; Jewish colonial projects ; the first Jewish settlers ; decline of the original community ; the Oliveras of Savannah and Charlestown ; the Minises ; commercial relations with New York Jewish merchants ; Isaac Levy's claim to part of two Georgia Sea Islands ; Abraham DeLyon and his vineyard ; Joseph Ottolenghe and the silk industry ; Ottolenghe as schoolmaster to the Negroes ; Ottolenghe's career as a public servant ; Chrstian missionary propaganda in the Savannah Jewish community

14. Georgia, 1768-1777 : Birth of the Georgia Jewish community ; Jews and the slave trade in Georgia and in the other colonies ; mercantile activity of the Lucenas ; Philip Moses comes out ; peregrinations of Abraham Sarzedas ; religious and political rights of the Jews in colonial Georgia ; the Nunez family ; why Jewish Whigs? ; Jewish participation in the Revolution ; Israel Joseph an active patriot

15. Georgia, 1778-1783 : The Sheftalls of Georgia ; the Jewish community is again reborn ; Mordecai Sheftall as a patriot leader ; his activity as supply officer ; Sheftall answers a Charlestown attack on the Jews ; the Shetftalls as prisoners of war ; Abigail Minis, Georgia businesswoman ; a Savannah Jewish home ; Mordecai Sheftall petitions Congress for reimbursement ; Sheftall Sheftall as flag master ; Privateering ; gossip in the Jewish community ; the dawn of freedom

16. The coming of the immigrants : Background for emigration; where they went ; outlets in Europe and in the new world; the Jew comes to the North American mainland; where the immigrants settled, and the reception they received; who came? ; ethic stock and ritual affiliation; the significant 1750's; population and mobility

17. Economic activity to 1790 : Agriculture and ranching; craftsmen; the professions; industry; commerce and trade; peddlers, shopkeepers; merchants and merchant-shippers; slave trade; Privateering; supplying the armed forces; fur trade; land business; "visibility" of Jewish businessmen; the Jewish businessman ; his measure of success; criminality and malefactors; the contribution of the Jewish element to American business life; the class structure

18. Religio-communal organization : Why American Jews created a community; the rise of American Jewish communities; the synagogue; the synagogue a social center?; leisure activities; leadership in the congregation; paid officers; membership, congregational meetings; discipline; cemetery; religious observance

19. Culture and philanthropy : Jewish education; content and problems of Jewish culture; American interest in Hebraism and the contemporary Jew; Jewish literature; general culture; charity; the American Jewish religious community after the Revolution; a national American Jewish synagogue community?

20. Acculturation

21. The struggle for political equality

22. Retrospect.

Notes:

Includes biographical references and index.

Local Notes:

The Balch Institute Library and Archives.

Other Format:

Online version: Marcus, Jacob Rader, 1896-1995. Early American Jewry.

OCLC:

1316823