Mythologizing 1654

T H E JE W I S H Q UA R T E R LY R E V I E W, Vol. 94, No. 4 (Fall 2004) 583–594 N O T E S : ‘‘ T H E A M E R I C A N QU E S T I O N ’’ Mythologizing 1654 ARTHUR KIRON This essay is dedicated to my teacher Arthur Aryeh Goren, who opened my eyes to the politics and public culture of American Jews. WITHOUT MEANING TO sound like the grinch who stole Christmas, I would like to ask why and when the year 1654 became recognized as the founding date of American Jewish history? That this date has been widely accepted by contemporary Jewish and American institutions seems incontrovertible. In preparation for its national celebration in 2004, for example, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, the U.S. Library of Congress, and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration created an umbrella group and Web site—‘‘Commission for Commemorating 350 years of American Jewish History’’—to honor the occasion.1 These institutions planned a year-long series of national events, including exhibits at some of their home institutions, a traveling exhibit to ‘‘a select number of American communities,’’ as well as ‘‘an internet website,’’ ‘‘a series of public media productions,’’ ‘‘a series of educational initiatives, electronic and in print,’’ and a ‘‘scholars’ conference.’’ The Jewish Women ’s Archive, ‘‘a national, non-profit organization with a mission to uncover , chronicle and transmit the rich legacy of Jewish women and their contributions to our families and communities, to our people and to our world,’’ launched a redesigned Web site as a direct consequence of their ‘‘anticipating increased interest in American Jewish history resulting from the 350th anniversary of Jewish communal life in North America.’’2 ‘‘The Shearith Israel League of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue’’ in New York City, which dates the founding of its congregation to the arrival of Jews to New Amsterdam in 1654, released a three-CD set of its Sephardic liturgical music. For these organizations as well as at Jewish 1. http://www.350th.org 2. http://www.jwa.org/350th The Jewish Quarterly Review (Fall 2004) Copyright 䉷 2004 Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. All rights reserved. 584 JQR 94:4 (2004) congregations and college campuses across the country, the anniversary constituted a national event. It is clear what we celebrate: the arrival in 1654 of a group of perhaps twenty-three Jews to Dutch New Amsterdam from eastern Brazil, which they had abandoned after the Portuguese Catholic reoccupation of that territory the same year.3 What is not as clear is why this event has come to stand for the origin of American Jewish history. Why this moment and not another? For Congregation Shearith Israel the connection makes sense: 1654 marks the beginning of their congregational history in New York City. By affirming 1654, they lay claim to being the first congregation in American Jewish history and simultaneously direct attention to the Sephardic identity of the first American Jewish pioneers.4 The committee planners, representing the ‘‘national Jewish community ,’’ declare the flight from persecution by the refugees from Brazil as a basic explanation and theme. This notion of America as an asylum for the oppressed (which has its own interesting history)5 is linked by them, in turn, to the ‘‘integral relationship between American freedom and Jewish continuity.’’ The committee moreover aspired to even higher ground: ‘‘the Jewish experience in America—with its commitment to the values of freedom, opportunity, religious liberty, equality and pluralism—is the story of America and American ideals as well.’’6 It is noteworthy that the word ‘‘America’’ was employed by the committee as a convenient synonym for the United States. Not that it is unusual to use the word ‘‘America’’ in this sense. But this usage does have the practical consequence of narrowing the scope of the celebration to the national experience of United States Jewry rather than enlarging it to embrace the multiple Jewish communities located throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Jewish story told about 1654 is identified with the national experience of the...