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The Touro Synagogue or Congregation Jeshuat Israel is a synagogue built in 1763 in Newport, Rhode Island. It is the oldest synagogue building still standing in the United States, the only surviving synagogue building in the U.S. dating to the colonial era, and the oldest surviving Jewish synagogue building in North America. In 1946, it was declared a National Historic Site.
The history of the Jews in Latin America began with conversos who joined the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the continents. The Alhambra Decree of 1492 led to the mass conversion of Spain's Jews to Catholicism and the expulsion of those who refused to do so. However, the vast majority of conversos never made it to the New World and remained in Spain slowly assimilating to the dominant Catholic culture. This was due to the requirement by Spain's Blood Statutes to provide written documentation of Old Christian lineage to travel to the New World. However, the first Jews came with the first expedition of Christopher Columbus, including Rodrigo de Triana and Luis De Torres.
African-American Jews are people who are both African American and Jewish. African-American Jews may be either Jewish from birth or converts to Judaism. Many African-American Jews are of mixed heritage, having both non-Jewish African-American and non-Black Jewish ancestors. Many African-American Jews identify as Jews of color, but some do not. Black Jews from Africa, such as the Beta Israel from Ethiopia, may or may not identify as African-American Jews.
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.
Bevis Marks Synagogue, officially Qahal Kadosh Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located off Bevis Marks, Aldgate, in the City of London, England, in the United Kingdom. The congregation is affiliated to London's historic Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community and worships in the Sephardic rite.
The history of Jews in Charleston, South Carolina, was related to the 1669 charter of the Carolina Colony, drawn up by the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and his secretary John Locke, which granted liberty of conscience to all settlers, and expressly noted "Jews, heathens, and dissenters". Sephardi Jews from London were among the early settlers in the city and colony, and comprised most of its Jewish community into the early 1800s.
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was a rabbi, scholar, kabbalist, and religious writer. In 1656, he was one of several elders within the Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam and for a time in Dutch Brazil before the Portuguese reconquest. He was one of the religious leaders who excommunicated philosopher Baruch Spinoza in 1656.
Kahal Zur Israel was a Jewish synagogue located at Rua do Bom Jesus number 197 in Recife, Brazil. It was established in 1636 by Portuguese and Spanish Sephardic Jews that had taken refuge in Dutch Brazil fleeing forced conversion and were joined by New Christians, who possibly helped to build the structure and were already living in the colony. It was the first synagogue erected in the Americas. The building is now a museum, featuring a Torah and bema as well as archeological excavations displaying various parts of the original synagogue, such as the mikveh.
A Jewish population has been in Barbados almost continually since 1654.
Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located in Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States.
Temple Beth Elohim is a Reform Jewish synagogue located at 230 Screven Street in Georgetown, South Carolina, in the United States.
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Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, after he achieved success, he donated large sums of money to promote industry, business, economic development, education and health among the Jewish community in the Levant. He founded Mishkenot Sha'ananim in 1860, the first Jewish settlement outside the Old City of Jerusalem.
The history of the Jews in Suriname starts in 1639, as the English government allowed Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy to settle the region, coming to the old capital Torarica.
Emanuel Lousada was a British merchant, planter and politician with interests in Jamaica and Barbados. He was the High Sheriff of Devon from 1842 until 1843, making him the first Jew to hold the title in a county outside of the Sheriff of London, which had been held first by David Salomons in 1835. Lousada was associated with Peak House, Sidmouth. Lousada owned more than 400 African slaves on his sugarcane plantations in the British West Indies at the time of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. He died a wealthy man, leaving £100,000 in his will.
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Billy Simmons was an African-American Jew from Charleston, South Carolina, one of the few documented Black Jews living in the Antebellum South. Simmons was a scholar in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Lucy Marks was an African-American Jew from Philadelphia, one of the few documented Black Jews during early American history. An active member of Congregation Mikveh Israel, she is buried in Mikveh Israel Cemetery.
The Lindo family was a Sephardic Jewish merchant and banking family, which rose to prominence in medieval Spain.
Sarah Brandon Rodrigues Moses was an African-American Jew, one of the earliest recorded Jewish women of African descent in American history. Born in Barbados, she and her brother Isaac Lopez Brandon went on to become part of the Sephardic upper class in New York City. Portraits of her and her brother Isaac are the earliest known paintings of Jews of African descent in North American history.
References
- 1 2 "Sarah Rodrigues Brandon". Jewish Women's Archive . Retrieved 2024-01-29.
- 1 2 3 "How a former slave became part of NY's Jewish elite". Jewish Telegraphic Agency . Retrieved 2024-01-29.
- ↑ "Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multi-Racial Jewish Family". LSU Scholarly Repository . Retrieved 2024-01-30.
- ↑ "Isaac Lopez Brandon". John L. Loeb, Jr. Database of Early American Jewish Portraits. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
- ↑ "Tracking a Story that's Black, White, and Jewish". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved 2024-01-30.
- ↑ "Isaac Lopez Brandon". American Jewish Historical Society . Retrieved 2024-01-29.