Volume 37, Number 6 · April 12, 1990
The Pot that Didn't Melt
By John Higham
The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A History
by Arthur Hertzberg
Simon and Schuster, 428 pp., $22.95
The first Jews to settle as a group in what is now the United States arrived at the frontier outpost of New Amsterdam in 1654, broke and unwanted, but unable to make a living back in Holland. A century and a half passed with relatively little change. A few prospered; most remained petty merchants or artisans. In 1812 New York contained about fifty Jewish families. Philadelphia, the largest American city, had about thirty. A conservative estimate puts the total Jewish population of the United States in 1820 at 2,700. Culturally, the Jews were as insignificant as they were in numbers and social importance. Religious indifference prevailed; intermarriage was common. A gloomy Jewish observer predicted that none of the existing synagogues was likely to survive for very long.
Review, 3214 words
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