Original Inventories of Early New York Jews (1682-1763)

[Editor's Note: In this issue, American Jewish History commences publication of all known surviving inventories of the Jews of colonial New York City. Inventories, compiled shortly after death and submitted to the appropriate court, list all property owned by the deceased, including personal possessions, real estate, cash on hand, debts owed to others, and debts owed to the estate. Inventories are therefore a source of vital information to the historian, shedding light upon such matters as social and economic status, contemporary business practices, family relationships, cultural interests, religious practices, and prevailing economic conditions. They are also of value to genealogists.

Leo Hershkowitz, professor of history at Queens College of The City University of New York, has meticulously transcribed the twelve surviving inventories of the Jewish inhabitants of colonial New York City. In addition, he has provided a general introduction to the collection and introductions to each inventory. We begin publication of this important collection with Professor Hershkowitz's general introduction, followed by seven of the extant inventories, beginning with the earliest, Asser Levy's. Levy is the most famous of the original Jewish settlers of early New York while it was still New Amsterdam, a man familiar to students of early American Jewish history because of his struggle against Governor Peter Stuyvesant on behalf of civic rights for the colony's Jewish inhabitants. American Jewish History has previously published Levy's inventory (80: 21-55). We republish it in this issue not only in the interest of presenting the complete collection but also because of revisions and refinements Professor Hershkowitz believes are in order. The remaining five inventories will appear in our next issue.

More than three decades ago, American Jewish History published the extant wills of the Jewish inhabitants of eighteenth-century New York under Professor Hershkowitz's editorship. The American Jewish Historical Society subsequently published them in a single volume entitled Wills of Early New York Jews (1704-1799), along with the extensive editorial commentary that accompanied them in the journal's pages. It is to be hoped that the inventories and editorial accompaniment that we now present will also be published eventually as a single volume, thereby making both the wills and the inventories of New York's earliest Jewish residents accessible to scholars in book form.]

Introduction

Inventories listing the property of decedents add considerably to a neglected area of American Jewish historical investigation. Twelve such documents from the colonial period are presented here. The oldest extant, that of Asser Levy (1682-1683), is the most detailed and possibly the most intriguing, but no less so are those of Joseph Bueno de Mesquita (1708-1710), Esther Brown, the only woman (1708), Isaac Pinheiro (1709/10), or any of the others. The last inventory is that of Mordecai Gomez (1763). With only one exception, these very important sources have never been published before, and, with the exception of that one, the inventory of Asser Levy, rarely if ever cited, much less used for purposes of analysis.

The decedents were part of a small group of Jews who comprised perhaps ½ of 1 percent to as much as 1 percent of the population of New York at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with a peak of about 1 .5 percent in February 1734.¹ A few held office, and several served in the militia. Some probably voted, although at times this caused a measure of protest. Their impact on politics is very difficult to gauge. Nevertheless, it was there. For example, an Assembly act passed in 1730 specifically included Jews among those protected by law from attack by slaves.² Between 1729 and 1730, they were also allowed to build a synagogue. The Dutch had denied this request, but Jews never seem to have made an issue of that refusal, possibly because a synagogue required funding and there were so few to bear the costs—and these were so transient. There had been a certain lack of permanence in the settlement earlier, and the building of a synagogue was a sign of a positive commitment that the community would now stay and flourish...