The saga of Jewish emigration to America, from the early days of American history to the present, has been nothing less than extraordinary. Jews have been involved in every aspect of American life—a true American success story. Our history has been one of tremendous highs and some upsetting lows, but overall, American Jews have felt fully integrated into American society. America has offered opportunities for upward mobility and success unique in the world!
What is so incredible about this immigration is that throughout American history, Jewish immigration did not comprise just Eastern European/Ashkenazi Jews, but also Sephardic Jews. There has literally been an ingathering of Jews of every background from all over the world, seeking a better life in America. Many of them found America to be the Goldene Medina (Yiddish for “Golden Land/Country”), a place of refuge, prosperity, and opportunity. After the Holocaust, Jews found their way here, as did Jews from throughout the Arab world, displaced from Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and elsewhere by hatred. They all discovered the realization of Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus,” which is engraved on the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
However, since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, we have reached a worrisome inflection point in American Jewish history. Following October 7th, Jews across America, from campuses to the streets (and even in front of our synagogues), have been the targets of rising antisemitism and have felt increasingly unwelcome. Jews and Jewish institutions have been the targets of virulent hatred, most often being associated with events in Israel. This antipathy has even ramped up significantly as a result of the Israel/US coordinated attack on Iran, arguably the most malevolent actor in the world, sponsoring terrorism throughout the world and developing a nuclear weapon. Instead of the universal thanks of many leading American elites, we have heard the litany of calumny against Israel and the Jewish people—genocide, apartheid, and more.
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this year, it is appropriate to focus on the dazzling history of the American Jewish experience.
What follows are a few vignettes from the amazing story of this people, cast aside elsewhere, who found their freedom in the outstretched, welcoming arms of the United States of America.
The Jewish Immigrant’s Experience
I begin with Abraham Cahan’s description of how an immigrant felt upon arriving in America:
The immigrant’s arrival in his new home is like a second birth to him. Imagine a new-born babe in possession of a fully developed intellect. Would it ever forget its entry into the world? … I conjure up the gorgeousness of the spectacle as it appeared to me on that clear June morning: … the tender blue of sea and sky, the dignified bustle of passing craft … It was all so utterly unlike anything I had ever seen or dreamed of before. It unfolded like a divine revelation. I was in a trance or something closely resembling one…This, then is America! I exclaimed … (The Rise of David Levinsky)
I daresay that every immigrant has felt this way, but just imagine seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time as a poor Jewish boy from Eastern Europe, once so destitute that he had to sleep in the pews of a synagogue in Russia, now finding his way to America and to a better life.
Sephardic Jews Arriving in America, 1654 – Almost Got Expelled
A group of Brazilian Jews arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, seeking religious freedom under the Dutch authorities. However, Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam, seized their possessions and even jailed two of them. Stuyvesant wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company that he hoped that the Jews, “with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians, the deceitful race—such hateful enemies and blasphemers … be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony.”
The Jews of New Amsterdam submitted a petition to the Dutch West India Company, arguing that Jews should be permitted to reside in New Amsterdam. The directors of the Dutch West India Company rescinded Stuyvesant’s decision, and Jewish immigrants were permitted to remain in the colony, provided that their community remained self-supporting.
Jewish Support For The American Revolution
Haym Solomon (1740-1785), a Polish-Jewish immigrant, arranged over $650,000 ($374 million today) to finance George Washington’s army. During the war, he was arrested by the British as a spy and forced to work as a German translator for the Hessians. He used his position to convince German mercenary soldiers to disband and release prisoners. Upon being discovered, he was sentenced to death, but escaped to Philadelphia. He has been quoted as saying: “I am a Jew; it is my own nation; I do not despair that we shall obtain every other privilege that we aspire to enjoy along with our fellow-citizens.” (American Jewish Archives)
George Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I. (August 18, 1790)
In this incredible letter, Washington says:
For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support … May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. (founders.archives.gov).
Extraordinary!
Alexander Hamilton – Did He Have a Jewish Identity?
Professor Andrew Porwancher argues in his book The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton University Press, 2021) that “it would be uncontentious to claim that the balance of evidence points to his status as a Jew.”
Porwancher refers to Hamilton as a lawyer representing Jewish citizens in court, and tells us that, “at his alma mater, Columbia, Hamilton helped spearhead reforms that were friendly to Jews. He proved instrumental in placing the first Jew on the college board, abolishing mandatory forms of Christian worship for undergraduates, and repealing a religious test that had disqualified Jews … from the Columbia presidency.”
During a trial where opposing counsel “impugned his Jewish witnesses, Hamilton responded by exalting Jews as the Chosen People.” Certainly not definitive, but surely fascinating to speculate that one of America’s founding fathers, who helped America become credit-worthy through his financial bailout (Report on the Public Credit, 1790) and ultimately led to America becoming a major world financial power, might have had a Jewish identity.
Porwancher does add a sobering thought: “And if indeed the evidence of Hamilton’s Jewish identity is not controversial but the idea of it remains so, then perhaps the question of Jewish belonging in the United States is as fraught in our time as it was in his own.”
Saving Jefferson’s Monticello
Uriah Phillips Levy (1792–1862) was a hero of the War of 1812 and the first Jewish Commodore of the United States Navy. When Jefferson died in 1826, he was in extreme debt, and his beloved estate, Monticello, was severely run-down and ragged. His grandson and executor of his will, Thomas J. Randolph, was forced to sell just about everything Jefferson owned to pay his creditors.
In 1834, Uriah Phillips Levy, a fifth-generation American Jew and an admirer of Jefferson, acquired it for just $2,500. Levy chose to maintain and preserve Monticello as Jefferson created it. Ownership and care of Monticello eventually passed to Jefferson Monroe Levy, Uriah’s 27-year-old nephew, after Uriah Levy’s death. Due to financial strain, Levy agreed to sell in 1919; four years later, the newly formed Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation purchased the property for $500,000. Jefferson Monroe Levy died three months later. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc. still owns and manages Monticello, based on its original principle – to purchase, preserve, and maintain Monticello as a memorial to Thomas Jefferson and his ideals (National Park Service).
Grant expulsion of the Jews—Abraham Lincoln to the Rescue!
In General Orders No. 11 (December 17, 1862), Major General Ulysses S. Grant expelled all Jews from the Department of the Tennessee, giving them twenty-four hours to leave. In a plea from the deported Jewish citizens to President Lincoln (December 29, 1862), Lincoln was asked to rescind the order:
The undersigned, good and loyal citizens of the United States and residents of this town for many years, engaged in legitimate business as merchants, feel greatly insulted and outraged by this inhuman order, the carrying out of which would be the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it, and would place us, besides a large number of other Jewish families of this town, as outlaws before the whole world. We respectfully ask your immediate attention to this enormous outrage on all law and humanity, and pray for your effectual and immediate interposition.
The order was thereafter revoked by President Lincoln in January 1863.
A Refugee and a Lincoln Scholar
Speaking of President Lincoln, Gabor Boritt—a Hungarian refugee who survived the Holocaust and Communist rule before arriving in the US in 1957 with just one dollar—was a renowned professor at Gettysburg College. As noted in his Wall Street Journal obituary (February 12, 2026), Boritt taught himself English using a booklet of Lincoln’s writings while working in a hat factory.
Only in America!
Jewish Military Participation and Leadership
We are proud of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy (born Chaim Godalia Rykower in Poland and an immigrant to America), and other American Jews who fought, with many giving their lives, for the American cause.
Throughout World War II, more than 550,000 American Jews, including an estimated 10,000 Jewish women, served in the US military. (American Jewish Historical Archives).
There is so much to say about the American Jewish story and how Jews have thrived in our great nation. Senator Joseph Lieberman was the Democratic Party candidate for Vice President of the United States. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developed life-saving vaccines. Harry and Jack Warner, Adolph Zukor, and Louis B. Mayer were among many American Jewish titans of the entertainment industry. The list of American Jewish intellectuals is endless, including Norman Podhoretz, Norman Mailer, Phillip Roth, Saul Bellow, and Cynthia Ozick. They, and so many more, have helped shape our American society in so many ways.
Conclusion
There is so much more to tell about how Americans opened their hearts to Jewish refugees. While there are some sad and disappointing episodes, such as immigration quotas (which, candidly, were applied to many other ethnic and religious groups) and the US handling of the desperate Jewish immigration to America before and during World War II (the St. Louis), and corporate discrimination (highlighted by the film Gentleman’s Agreement), overall the American Jewish story the opportunity for Jews to contribute to all facets of society has been remarkable.
The fact is, however, that Jews in America are inextricably connected, whether they prefer it or not, to the events in Israel and the Middle East. Since the events of October 7th, the rhetoric permeating our government and society has become deeply disturbing and worrisome.
The hope is that our American legal and political institutions will remain strong, and the rule of law will prevail, and discrimination against Jews will be fought relentlessly wherever it might appear. We need to stand for the proposition that Jews can support Israel while still loving America.
Let us hope and pray that America will remain the Goldene Medina for the Jewish people, for it is the greatest honor and privilege for Jews to be Americans, and to contribute to the success of the United States of America. We are forever thankful to America for the lifeline and support extended to Jews throughout our history.
Mark Meirowitz is a Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College.
