The arrival over 350 years ago of 23 Sephardic Jews from Recife, Brazil to New Amsterdam (now New York) gave us the first page of a new chapter in the annals of Jewish history.
The Dutch wrestled away a large chunk of the Portuguese colony in Brazil in the 1620s. Jews had been allowed to settle in the Protestant Netherlands since the Dutch freed themselves from Catholic Spain in the late 16th century. In order to strengthen their foothold in Brazil, the Dutch encouraged Jews (with whom they shared a common enemy in Catholic Spain and Portugal) to settle in the harbor city of Recife, in the northeastern province of Pernambuco.
This first Jewish community in the New World numbered over 1,000 inhabitants, and soon began to thrive. Tsur Yisroal served as the synagogue. Rabbi Isaac Aboab de Fonseca subsequently returned to Amsterdam to issue a herem (an edict of excommunication) against Baruch Spinoza for secularizing Judaism. The town then developed, complete with an influx of doctors, lawyers, peddlers and merchants, and they developed a main street called Rua dos Judeos (Street of the Jews). Many Jews prospered in the trading of tobacco, precious gems, wood and sugar.
Everything changed in 1654 when Portugal reconquered Brazil. Fearing the reenactment of the Inquisition, the Jews of Recife either returned to Holland or fled to Dutch, French, or English colonies in the Caribbean. Jews of mostly Sephardic descent—collectively known as “La Nacion”—had recently established small but flourishing economic enclaves in Parimaribo, Barbados, Curacao, Jamaica, Hispanola and Cayenne.
A total of 16 ships transported both Jewish and Dutch colonists from Recife. Fifteen arrived safely; however, the sixteenth was captured by Spanish pirates.
