Jews of America

Under the complex and separate histories of Jewry in Spain and Portugal, an undetermined number of Jews made their way to the colonial Americas as conversos or New Christians, joining in those national programs of exploration and settlement. However, the first settlement to have a genuine, unconcealed Jewish identity within it, and even a rabbi, was Dutch Brazil, a twelve-year experiment in commerce and colonial life inside actual Portuguese territory. More permanence would be found in Jewish settlements elsewhere in the Americas, with a focus here on those of Curacao, Surinam, and Anglo-America.