Jewish Americans landed in New Netherlands before it became New York and built their first synagogue in the country there in 1730. So, logically, New York should have been the home to this museum rather than Philadelphia. Early Jewish settlers included Portuguese Jews who were persecuted and forced to convert to Catholicism if they didn’t move out of the country. But the Portuguese Jews, too, were denied citizenship in certain American states in the 18th century.
The museum continues to tell the history of early Jewish Americans in several states by displaying artifacts in their contributions to America. The Jews, with a historic memory of being enslaved by the Pharoah of Egypt, were divided on slavery in America. Many Jews in the south traded slaves while those in the north advocated against it. After sometimes meeting each other on the battlefield in the Civil War, many Jews in the north went south to seek business opportunities.
Judaism in America started to change in the 19th century with some synagogues adopting mixed-gender family seating and playing organs like in Christian churches. I’m the early 20th century over 20 million European Jews landed in America and the Johnson-Reed Act that imposed racial quotas on immigration excluded, among other people, Eastern European Jews.
Jewish Americans continued to mix into American society, the museum shows this by telling the stories of Jews who participated in the civil rights movement and how they lived in suburban houses in nuclear families.
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