In Search Of. . . Earlier American-Jewish Anniversary Celebrations: 1905 and 1954

As the Jewish semisepcentennial, the 350^th anniversary of the arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam approached, Jewish community leaders and historians examined earlier anniversary celebrations to see how they were commemorated. Some of the undertakings set precedents which forged the path for a stronger, more self-assured community. Some created a structure and ceremonial procedures that were worthy of being made more traditional. Yet, there were also controversies and perceptions that revealed differences within the American Jewish community.

On April 9, 1905, two hundred fifty years after the first permanent Jewish immigrants to settle on the mainland of North America received permission from the Dutch West India Company to remain in New Amsterdam, a planning meeting of Jewish leaders convened in New York City in the vestry of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue, to appoint an executive committee and a general committee of two hundred fifty male Jewish lay leaders and clergy, with "representatives in every State and Territory and in most important cities of the Union" to coordinate the approaching anniversary.¹

To make the celebration a truly national event, the executive committee determined "that every Jewish congregation in the United States is requested to hold appropriate services on Saturday (November 25^th) preceding the National Thanksgiving Day, 1905," and that "every Jewish Sabbath School shall be urged to hold similar festivities on the Sunday (November 26^th) preceding Thanksgiving Day, to the end that the significance is impressed upon every American Jew."²

The executive committee chaired by banking philanthropist and community leader Jacob Schiff, consisted of prominent Ashkenazi members of nineteenth-century German descent including Louis Marshall and Cyrus Adler and the Reverend Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes of the Sephardic Shearith Israel Congregation. The committee had a keen sense of history and deep commitment to the Jewish community. Its members began the American Jewish Historical Society, the Jewish Publication Society, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. They would shortly found the American Jewish Committee and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. As post-Civil War communal leaders, they were beginning to feel "at home" in America, and wanted to prove that American Jewry, arriving just thirty-four years after the Mayflower were, in fact, "native born sons." The anniversary celebrations and the activities that ensued were intended to justify this fact.

The Executive Committee reprinted the statement printed in the American Hebrew delivered before the society of "Judeans" on April 29, 1905, "that whilst every American Jew is profoundly grateful for the liberties which he enjoys, in common with all the other citizens, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, he does not regard those blessings as a mere gift from others, but as of right his, because his ancestors were among the first settlers and pioneers of this country, were active in its development, fought for its independence and preservation, and because to the full extent of his power, he has contributed to its greatness."³

Louis Marshall, the renowned attorney and Jewish communal leader, added "The Jews as Elements in the Population, Past, and Present" to the executive report to depict the Jew as a settler in America who "should be classed as American pioneers, not as interlopers, not as exploiters, but as active participants in the building of the nation." Marshall emphasized that "their (The Jews) hearts, their hands and their fortunes have become inseparably united with those of city, the state, and the nation which they call their own. Their loyalty had never been questioned."⁴

To support their view of America's earliest Jews, the executive committee immediately began to gather general historical facts which had bearing on American Jewish history, compiled a bibliography on aspects of Jewish life that focused on the Jewish pioneer, and reprinted the comprehensive "America" and "New York" articles from the 1901–1906 Funk and Wagnall's Jewish Encyclopedia. "With the same goal in mind, the American Jewish Year Book of 5666, September 30, 1905–September 19, 1906, finished part three in a series of biographical sketches which, though incomplete, demonstrated "the presence in...