May 5, 2006, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a special day for all Jews. Almost one third of Jews in the US call New York home, and they remember this day with special sorrow. But it was a different holocaust that brought the first Jews to New York—the Inquisition. In 1654, twenty-three Portuguese Jews arrived in the city of Nieuw Amsterdam (present day Lower Manhattan). These were the first Jewish settlers in the US. This article reviews the history behind their reasons to come to this country.

In 1215, the 4th ecumenical Council of the Lateran was held in Rome and presided over by Pope Innocent III. The council announced seventy decrees reformulating the canons of Catholicism, including laws directly affecting Jews. For example, Jews had to wear a special mark so that they could be easily distinguished from Christians and they were prohibited from living in the same areas as Christians. The Council was attended by ambassadors from Germany, France, England, Aragon, Portugal, Hungary, Jerusalem, and the various Italian states. In principle, they all had to comply with the decree. On the Iberian Peninsula however, the council’s orders concerning Jews were not obeyed until the turn of the 15th century, which is when the judiarias (Jewish quarters) emerged. Iberia, at the turn of the first millennium, was a mosaic of Christian and Muslim kingdoms where there was, generally speaking, a convivência (coexistence) between Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

The compulsory Christianization of Jews and Muslims in Iberia gave rise to the New Christians, also called conversos. Many of these, however, remained loyal to their pre-conversion traditions while pretending to be faithful Christians. This gave rise to Crypto-Judaism, a form of Judaism where Christian and Jewish traditions became somewhat intermixed. This form of Judaism still exists in Portugal and in other places in the world where the Sephardim (Iberian Jews) have settled.

The New Christians were at odds with everyone. They were regarded with suspicion by both Christians and Jews. The latter would call them marranos, a derogatory Ladino (the language spoken by the Sephardim) word referring to pigs. In addition, many of the New Christians and Jews had economic and political positions that were seen by the Old Christians (the Christians of non-converso origin) as a threat to their status. Jewish people in Iberia were proficient bankers and merchants who were in a position to lend money with interest. The concept of credit was not welcomed by the Old Christians, especially when it was time to pay their debts.

In 1391, anti-Semitic riots exploded in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and the Jewish quarters were attacked. In that same year, 4,000 Jews were killed in Seville. This pogrom was the first of many attacks and expressed the presence of intense tension and conflict within Castilian society.

In the meantime, the mottos of the Dominican friars became more and more popular among the masses: Veritas, Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare (“the truth, to praise, to bless, to preach”). The Dominicans were mendicant urban monks and persuasive preachers who fiercely advocated the end of heresy. Queen Isabel of Castile had been influenced from a young age by the words and advice of Tomás de Torquemada, a member of the Dominican Order. In 1478, she and her husband Fernando of Aragon founded the Holy Office of Inquisition, a court where Christians accused of heresy were brought to trial. Tomás de Torquemada was appointed Inquisitor General, a position which he used to express his utter cruelty against the New Christians. Paradoxically, there is evidence suggesting that he was also of converso origin. The Inquisition also prosecuted witches, bigamists, homosexuals, Lutherans, pseudo-holy women (beatas), Christianized Muslims (moriscos), humanists, or anyone who would challenge the status quo. This court was a new weapon that took social tension to new heights; minor conflicts between neighbors could easily end up in court where confiscation of assets and death would often be the final verdicts. At this time, Torquemada introduced the auto de fé, a ritual of public punishment, humiliation, or execution of the convicted.

Figure 1: Migration of Iberian Jews in the 14th and 15th centuries courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin

The kings of Castile and Aragon needed both to please both the masses and defend Jews because Jews helped finance the ten-year war against Muslim Granada. However, once the war ended on January 2, 1492, the monarchs signed the Alhambra Decree, which was a decree of expulsion. For Jews, this was an ultimatum: be baptized to become a Christian, or leave Castile and Aragon. Many Jews converted to Christianity, which made them eligible for interrogation by the Holy Office, but a large number of Jews fled the country. They went to Morocco, Italy, and to the Ottoman Empire, but the greatest number (perhaps half of the total) went to Portugal (Fig. 1).

The emigration of Castilian Jews to Portugal was not a novel phenomenon, especially after the 1391 pogroms in Seville. This influx continuously increased the Portuguese Jewish population, which can be traced back to the 5th century. In 1492, however, about 100,000 Jews entered Portugal in less than a year and this abrupt demographic change was one of the factors that led to social tensions and conflicts.

Portugal’s king, João II, welcomed the entrance of Jews, but didn’t quite know how to deal with the social problems resulting from immigration. He tried to convince Jews to be baptized, while granting them protection against the fury of the masses that, just as in Spain, ended up following the Dominican mottos. The Portuguese monarchs regarded Jews as precious elements of scientific and economic development, as evidenced by the fact that Jews held most of the powerful positions of science, finance, and administration. Jews were a valuable asset for the Portuguese maritime expansion.

The death of King João II in 1495 created a political crisis. His son, Prince Afonso died before him, so his cousin Manuel I inherited the throne. Manuel I’s legitimacy as a king was questioned and he was advised to marry the widow of Prince Afonso, Isabel, one of the three daughters of Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon. The wedding was arranged to take place in 1497 but, as a dowry, Isabel demanded the religious cleansing of Portugal: all Jews had to choose between expulsion or baptism. Soon, Manuel I began to question his choice of bride. He knew the value of Jews and did not want them to flee the country. He wanted to find some way to keep them in Portugal as Catholics, so he designed a fictitious expulsion. He signed a decree on December 5, 1496, officially expelling all Jews; at the same time, he closed off the borders and harbors to Jews, which prevented them from escaping.

The following spring, on the first day of Passover in 1497, King Manuel I commanded all Jews to come to the main harbor cities, including Lisbon. Holy water was sprinkled on them and they were declared Christians—what came to be known as baptismos de pé (standing baptisms). King Manuel I then informed the Catholic kings of Spain that there were no more Jews in Portugal. In addition, King Manuel I gave these New Christians twenty years of protection against religious persecution. It turned out a few years later that this expeditious solution intensified the existing social tension—New Christians turned into the scapegoats of society.

Figure 2: Migration of Iberian Jews in the 16th and 17th centuries

In the Netherlands, they were also confined to Jewish quarters, but at least had the freedom to practice their religion in temples with entrances facing the street. The Esnoga, today called the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam, opened its doors in 1639 and represents the final merging of three Sephardic groups that fled into that country throughout the early sixteen hundreds. The Portuguese Jewish population, which included rabbis, scholars, philosophers, artists, bankers, as well as founders and trustees of major international commercial companies, played a significant part in the cultural and economic development of the Dutch Republic.

In 1630, the Dutch took Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil, from the Portuguese. In the capital, Recife, they found that the Portuguese community of Crypto-Jews was part of the local economic engine. The Dutch arranged for the “Hebrews of the Portuguese nation,” as they were called in Amsterdam, to settle overseas, mix with the locals, and expand the scope of business opportunities. Soon, Recife became an active site for financiers, brokers, sugar exporters, and suppliers of African slaves that increased the wealth of the Dutch West India Company (West-Indische Compagnieor WIC). For twenty-four years, in Recife, the Portuguese Jews were allowed to live freely and in 1637 they created the first synagogue in the Americas, the Hahal Tzur Israel (The Rock Community of Israel).

However, on January 26, 1654, General Francisco Barreto de Menezes directed the Portuguese army to reconquer Recife from the Dutch. The Dutch surrendered and were given six months to abandon the area, during which Menezes granted Jews respectful treatment. In fact, Menezes, a Catholic and Old-Christian, helped Jews to flee instead of handing them over to the Inquisition. His name is registered in the annals of Portuguese Jewish history as a man with a noble character (hassid umot ha’olam). At the same time, Jews often had to resort to bribery in order to survive.

The Dutch did not have enough boats to deport everybody so Menezes provided sixteen ships from the Portuguese fleet to Jews. About 150 Jewish families used those boats to sail back to Holland. However, those on the long journey had to face the danger of pirates and Spanish boats, and some of these families gave up trying to reach Holland, ending up in places like St. Thomas, Jamaica, Surinam, and Curaçao. One of the boats was attacked by pirates in Cuba, but the lives of twenty-three Portuguese Jews were saved by a French ship, the Sainthe Catherine.

On September 7, 1654, the Sainthe Catherine arrived in Dutch waters at the port of the city of Nieuw Amsterdam. Its captain, Jacques de la Motthe, said farewell to the ones he saved, leaving behind the first Jewish settlers in North America. Among these twenty-three survivors, only six families were represented. Official Dutch records show the names of the heads of these families: Abraão Israel Dias, Moisés Lumbroso, David Israel Faro, Asher Levy, Enrica Nunes, and Judite Mercado. Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of Nieuw Amsterdam, did not welcome the entrance of Jews into the lands he oversaw. However, these Jews were merchants with strong connections to the powerful Dutch West India Company, which soon made Stuyvesant curb his strong desire for a pure Calvinist land.

Not much is known about the fate of those six Jewish families, except that they established the grounds of the oldest American synagogue, Shearith Israel (Remaining Israel), also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, located today on Central Park West at 70th Street. Shearith Israel still follows Sephardic rituals. Up to the end of the 19th century, despite having many Ashkenazi members, Shearith Israel kept a polyglot tradition where prayers and songs were recited in Hebrew or Ladino and documents were written in Portuguese and English.

Shearith Israel welcomed people of Portuguese ancestry that played important roles in civic life from the earliest times. Here are a few examples in chronological order:
Gershom Mendes Seixas (1745-1816), Shearith’s first American-born cantor (a Jewish religious official who is the chief singer of the liturgy in a synagogue), was a pro-independence activist during the American Revolution. When George Washington was inaugurated as the first president, Gershom was one of three clergymen who participated in the ceremony. In 1784, he was appointed a trustee of Columbia College, which is now Columbia University. Gershom’s brother, Benjamim Mendes Seixas (1748-1817), was one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange. The poet Emma Lazarus (1859-1887) was the daughter of Moses and Esther Lazarus, direct descendants of the first Portuguese Jewish settlers in 1654. In 1932, her cousin, Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938), also of Portuguese origin, became the second Jew to be appointed to the US Supreme Court. He gave his name to the Yeshiva University School of Law. Abraham Lopes Cardozo (1914-2006), was the cantor at Shearith for 40 years and was responsible for the musical direction of liturgical services. In 2000, Queen Beatrix of Holland gave him the title of Knight Of Orange Nassau, for his devotion to preserving Sephardic musical heritage.

History has shown that social tensions emerge when diverse groups are faced with megalomaniac projects of religious homogenization like the Crusades. The Inquisition in Portugal did not have the same magnitude of destruction as in Spain, but it is the reason behind the Sephardic diaspora that brought the first Jews into the US. This is a point not widely known by the world at large and has extensive roots in early European history.

Events like the Holocaust Remembrance Day and various museums around the world, including in the US, keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and teach the rest of the world about the mistakes of history. The Inquisition and the arrival of the first Jews in the US are not marked on any world calendar, but it is nevertheless a point in Jewish history that should never be forgotten.

Paulo Mendes Pinto is at the Center for Sephardic Studies, Alberto Bienveniste, University of Lisbon, Portugal.