American Jews in the context of "Dutch Brazil"

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⭐ Core Definition: American Jews

American Jews (Hebrew: יהודים אמריקאים, romanizedYehudim Amerikaim; Yiddish: אמעריקאנער אידן, romanizedAmerikaner Idn) or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by ethnicity, religion, or culture. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% identify as Sephardic, and 1% identify as Mizrahi. An additional 6% identify as some combination of the three categories, and 25% do not identify as any particular category.

During the colonial era, Sephardic Jews who arrived via Portugal and via Brazil (Dutch Brazil) – see Congregation Shearith Israel – represented the bulk of America's then small Jewish population. While their descendants are a minority nowadays, they represent the remainder of those original American Jews along with an array of other Jewish communities, including more recent Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Beta Israel-Ethiopian Jews, various other Jewish ethnic groups, as well as a smaller number of gerim (converts). The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance.

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In this Dossier

American Jews in the context of Jews in New York City

Jews compose approximately 12% of New York City's population, making the Jewish community the largest in the world outside of Israel. As of 2020, over 960,000 Jews lived in the five boroughs of New York City, and over 1.9 million Jews lived in the New York metropolitan area, approximately 25% of the American Jewish population.

Nearly half of the city’s Jews live in Brooklyn. The first recorded Jewish settler was Jacob Barsimson, who arrived in August 1654 on a passport from the Dutch West India Company. Following the assassination of Alexander II of Russia, for which many blamed "the Jews", the 36 years beginning in 1881 experienced the largest wave of Jewish immigration to the United States, when the Jewish population rose from about 80,000 in 1880 to 1.5 million in 1920. In 2012, the largest Jewish denominations in New York City were Orthodox, Haredi, and Conservative Judaism. Reform Jewish communities are prevalent through the area. Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan is the largest Reform Jewish synagogue in the world. The large Jewish population has led to a significant impact on the culture of New York City. After many decades of decline in the 20th century, the Jewish population of New York City has seen an increase in the 21st century, owing to the high birth rate of the Hasidic and other Orthodox communities.

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American Jews in the context of Rockland County, New York

Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population is 338,329, making it the state's third-most densely populated county outside New York City after Nassau and neighboring Westchester counties. The county seat and largest hamlet is New City. Rockland County is accessible via both the New York State Thruway, which crosses the Hudson River to Westchester via the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Tappan Zee, ten exits up from the NYC border; and the Palisades Parkway, four exits up, via the George Washington Bridge. The county's name derives from "rocky land", as the area has been aptly described, largely due to the Hudson River Palisades. The county is part of the Hudson Valley region of the state.

Rockland County is the smallest county by area in New York outside New York City. It comprises five towns, eighteen incorporated villages, eighteen census-designated places, eight hamlets and eleven defunct communities. Rockland County is designated as a Preserve America Community, and nearly a third of the county's area is parkland. The county has the largest Jewish population percentage of any U.S. county, at 31.4%, or 90,000 residents. Rockland also ranked 80th on the list of highest-income counties by median household income in the United States, with a median household income of $82,534 according to the 2010 census.

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American Jews in the context of Henry Morgenthau Jr.

Henry Morgenthau Jr. (/ˈmɔːrɡənθɔː/; May 11, 1891 – February 6, 1967) was the United States Secretary of the Treasury during most of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal. After 1937, while still in charge of the Treasury, he played the central role in financing the United States participation in World War II. He also played an increasingly major role in shaping foreign policy, especially with respect to Lend-Lease, support for China, helping Jewish refugees, and proposing (in the "Morgenthau Plan") measures to deindustrialize Germany.

Morgenthau was the father of Robert M. Morgenthau, who was district attorney of Manhattan for 35 years; Henry Morgenthau III, an American author and television producer; and noted pediatrician Dr. Joan Morganthau Hirschhorn. He continued as Treasury secretary through the first few months of Harry Truman's presidency, and from June 27, 1945, to July 3, 1945, following the resignation of Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr., was next in line to the presidency. Morgenthau was the only Jew to be next in line to the presidency in the presidential line of succession.

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American Jews in the context of Palmer Raids

The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by the United States Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. The raids particularly targeted Italian immigrants and Eastern European Jewish immigrants with alleged leftist ties, with particular focus on Italian anarchists and immigrant leftist labor activists. The raids and arrests occurred under the leadership of United States Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, with 6,000 people arrested across 36 cities. Though 556 foreign citizens were deported, including a number of prominent leftist leaders, Palmer's efforts were largely frustrated by officials at the U.S. Department of Labor, which had authority for deportations and objected to Palmer's methods.

The Palmer Raids occurred in the larger context of the First Red Scare, a period of reactionary fear of communists in the U.S. in the years immediately following World War I and the successful Russian Revolution. There were strikes that garnered national attention, and prompted race riots in more than 30 cities, as well as two sets of bombings in April and June 1919, including one bomb mailed to Palmer's home in response to his policy of politically motivated mass arrests and deportations.

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American Jews in the context of The Jazz Singer

The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American part-talkie musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music and lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolated sequences). Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, featuring six songs performed by Al Jolson. Based on the 1925 play of the same title by Samson Raphaelson, the plot was adapted from his short story "The Day of Atonement".

The film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a beer garden, he is punished by his father, a hazzan (cantor), prompting Jakie to run away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer, performing in blackface. He attempts to build a career as an entertainer, but his professional ambitions ultimately come into conflict with the demands of his home and heritage.

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American Jews in the context of History of the Jews in the United States

The history of the Jews in the United States goes back to the 1600s and 1700s. There have been Jewish communities in the United States since colonial times, with individuals living in various cities before the American Revolution. Early Jewish communities were primarily composed of Sephardi immigrants from Brazil, Amsterdam, or England, many of them fleeing the Inquisition.

Private and civically unrecognized local, regional, and sometimes international networks were noted in these groups in order to facilitate marriage and business ties. This small and private colonial community largely existed as undeclared and non-practicing Jews, a great number deciding to intermarry with non-Jews. Later on, the vastly more numerous Ashkenazi Jews that came to populate New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere in what became the United States of America altered these demographics.

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American Jews in the context of West Side, Chicago

The West Side is one of the three major geographical "sides" of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The others are the North Side and South Side. The West Side contains communities that are of historical and cultural importance to the history and development of Chicago. On the flag of Chicago, the West Side is represented by the central white stripe.

The West Side has gone through many transitions in its ethnic and socioeconomic makeup due to its historic role as a gateway for immigrants and migrants as well as its role for funneling poorer African-American residents away from the wealthier lakeside neighborhoods and central business district. Historically the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 started on the West Side before consuming much of the then city, and Jane Addams of Hull House brought international attention to the West Side in the late 1900s and early 20th century. At the same time, some of Chicago's grandest parks and boulevards were laid out on the West Side. Today, the West Side consists of large mixed communities of middle class, working class, and low-income African American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican residents; some small communities of blue-collar, lower middle class and middle class white residents of historically Polish, Italian, Czech, Russian Jewish, and Greek, descent; and newer communities of middle-class, upper-middle class, and wealthy white residents created by gentrification. Major shifts continue to happen due to forces such as rapid gentrification, selective corporate investments, and unequal distribution of city resources.

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American Jews in the context of Netanya

Netanya (Hebrew: נתניה, IPA: [netanˈja]), or Natanya (IPA: [naˈtanja]), is a city in the Central District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is 30 kilometres (20 mi) north of Tel Aviv, and 56 km (35 mi) south of Haifa, between the Poleg stream and the Wingate Institute in the south and the Avihayil stream in the north.

Netanya was named in honor of Nathan Straus, a prominent Jewish American merchant and philanthropist in the early 20th century who was the co-owner of Macy's department store. The 14 km (8+12 mi) of beaches have made the city a popular tourist resort.

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American Jews in the context of History of the Jews in Canada

The history of the Jews in Canada goes back to the 1700s. Canadian Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States and France. In the 2021 census, 335,295 people reported their religion as Jewish, accounting for 0.9% of the Canadian population. Some estimates have placed the enlarged number of Jews, such as those who may be culturally or ethnically Jewish, though not necessarily religiously, at more than 400,000 people, or approximately 1.4% of the Canadian population.

The Jewish community in Canada is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented and include Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and Bene Israel. Converts to Judaism also comprise the Jewish-Canadian community, which manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions and the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance. Though they are a small minority, they have had an open presence in the country since the first Jewish immigrants arrived with Governor Edward Cornwallis to establish Halifax, Nova Scotia (1749). The 1760s saw the first Jewish settlers in New France who arrived in Montreal after the British conquest of the city, among them was Aaron Hart who is considered the father of Canadian Jewry. His son Ezekiel Hart experienced one of the first well documented cases of antisemitism in Canada. Hart was consistently prevented from taking his seat at the Quebec legislature, with members contending he could not take the oath of office as a Jew, which included the phrase "on the true faith of a Christian". By the 1970s and 1980s, most legal barriers were removed, and Jews began to hold significant positions in Canadian society. However, antisemitism persists, evident in hate crimes and extremist groups.

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