The refugees from Dutch Brazil

The first group of refugees arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654 straight from Dutch Brazil. Peter Stuyvesant, the Director of New Netherland, initially rebuffed the Jewish refugees. They were given official permission to settle in the colony in 1655 and started Congregation Shearith Israel, despite facing discrimination and not being permitted to worship in a public synagogue throughout the Dutch and British periods.

For decades, the congregation had to worship in rented quarters on Beaver Street and Mill Street. They were allowed to make arrangements for a cemetery beginning in 1656, but they had to wait until 1730 to build a synagogue of its own on Mill Street. That building had access to a nearby spring used as a mikveh.

They moved around quite a bit before settling on the Upper West Side in 1897. They occupied the current Neoclassical building on West 70th Street, which features interior design and stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The congregation helped create the American Jewish Theological Seminary, though it eventually repudiated its association with the seminary.

Today, it remains an Orthodox congregation following the Sephardic rite. It is still the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, having survived through the Dutch, the British, and the rise of the modern city.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons