| 1654 |
Twenty-three Jewish refugees flee Brazil and the long arm of the inquisition, and land in New Amsterdam. |
| 1655 |
Dutch West India Company allows Jewish settlers to reside permanently in New Amsterdam. |
| 1664 |
The English conquer New Amsterdam and rename New York. |
| 1700 |
Jewish population of America numbers 250. |
| 1730 |
New York’s Shearith Israel dedicates its first synagogue building on Mill Street. |
| 1761 |
First Holiday prayer book in English published in New York. |
| 1762 |
The Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, dedicate a Sephardic synagogue, designed by leading Rhode Island architect Peter Harrison. |
| 1775 |
Frances Salvador elected to South Carolina Provisional Congress the first Jew to hold elective office in America. |
| 1776 |
The Declaration of Independence proclaims, “all men are created equal.” |
| 1781 |
Haym Salomon, a Polish Jew who arrived in New York in 1772 helps raise funds to finance the American cause in the Revolutionary War. |
| 1788 |
Ratification of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union …establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Not only are Jews included in “We the People” but Article VI guarantees, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office.” Jews may hold any office. |
| 1789 |
Gershom Mendes Seixas, hazan of New York’s Jewish congregation, invited to President George Washington’s inauguration. |
| 1790 |
As the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, welcome President George Washington, he responds in a letter, whose oft-quoted words – that this government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” – provide Jews with a guarantee of religious liberty. |
| 1791 |
The first freedom spelled out in the new Bill of Rights to the Constitution guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” |
| 1801 |
The first America Jewish orphan care society established in Charleston, South Carolina. |
| 1808 |
Polonies Talmud Torah, the first Jewish school on record in the United States established in New York. |
| 1813 |
Mordecai Manuel Noah, politician, editor and playwright, appointed United States Consul at Tunis; the first major diplomatic post awarded an American Jew. |
| 1819 |
In Philadelphia, Rebecca Gratz established the first independent Jewish Women’s charitable society and, in 1838, the Hebrew Sunday School, creating new avenues for Jewish women’s activism. |
| 1823 |
The first American Jewish periodical, “The Jew,” published in New York. |
| 1824 |
Jews in Charleston, South Carolina, organize the first Reform Jewish religious group in the United States. |
| 1830 |
German Jews begin to immigrate to America in substantial numbers. |
| 1833 |
The first book by an American Jewish woman, Penina Moise's “Fancy's Sketchbook,” published in South Carolina. |
| 1837 |
First Passover Haggadah printed in America. |
| 1840s |
Americans interpret their drive across the continent to extend the boundaries of freedom as their Manifest Destiny. Immigrants are among the 4 million Americans settling these territories. |
| 1840 |
First organized movement by American Jewry to protest false accusations of blood libel in Damascus , Syria. |
| 1841 |
David Levy Yulee of Florida elected to the United States Senate, the first Jew in Congress. |
| 1843 |
Twelve Jewish immigrants found B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant), the first secular Jewish organization in the United States. |
| 1853 |
Isaac Leeser publishes his translation of the Bible into English, the first complete Anglo-Jewish translation of the Pentateuch. |
| 1854 |
Judah Touro donates several hundred thousand dollars to Jewish and non-Jewish charitable institutions, making him one of America’s first major philanthropists. |
| 1856 |
Sabato Morais, rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, denounces the evils of American slavery from his pulpit. |
| 1859 |
Board of Delegates of American Israelites created. |
| 1861–1865 |
The Civil War tears the nation in two. At its end, 4 million African American slaves are freed; the Thirteenth Amendment has abolished slavery, and “one nation indivisible” stands. |
| 1862 |
General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No. 11 expelling the Jews “as a class” from the area under the jurisdiction of the Union army in his military department. |
| 1873 |
Reform Judaism’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) founded by 34 congregations across the United States. |
| 1874–1875 |
Young Men’s Hebrew Associations in New York and Philadelphia become prototypes for the more than 120 YMHAs established throughout the U.S. in the next 15 years. In the 20th century, many of these evolve into Jewish Community Centers. |
| 1875 |
In Cincinnati, Isaac Mayer Wise founds Hebrew Union College, Reform Judaism’s rabbinical seminary. |
| 1877 |
New Hampshire becomes the last state to offer Jews political equality. |
| 1881 |
Progroms in Russia propel thousands of Jews to immigrate to America. Before the US enacts strict immigration quotas in 1924, some 2.5 million impoverished Jews from Russia, Poland, Austro-Hungary and Romania have come to “the golden land.” |
| 1886 |
Etz Chaim, first yeshiva for Talmudic studies in the United States, established in New York.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, a rabbinical school for the Conservative movement, founded in New York.
Statue of Liberty unveiled in New York harbor. In 1903 Emma Lazarus’s sonnet “The New Colossus” (1883) is added to its pedestal. It welcomes all immigrants with these words: “ Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” |
| 1889 |
The Educational Alliance founded on the Lower East Side to assist Eastern European Jewish immigrants. |
| 1892 |
The American Jewish Historical Society is established, one of an array of new American Jewish cultural organizations still thriving today.
Workmen’s Circle established to promote Yiddishist and socialist ideas among the masses of Jewish labors. |
| 1893 |
National Council of Jewish Women founded in Chicago. |
| 1897 |
The Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), later part of Yeshiva University, begins training Orthodox rabbis.
The Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish daily newspaper, is founded in New York by Abraham Cahan. |
| 1898 |
Eastern European immigrants organize a Union of Orthodox Congregations, whose viewpoint clashes with that of the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC). |
| 1901 |
The Industrial Removal Office, organized by several Jewish organizations, relocates Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side to communities across the United States. |
| 1902 |
Solomon Schechter comes from England to America to head the Jewish Theological Seminary, Conservative Judaism rabbinical seminary. |
| 1903 |
Oscar Straus appointed US Secretary of Labor and Commerce, the first Jew to hold a cabinet post. |
| 1906 |
Shalom Aleichem comes to New York from Russia to write for the American Yiddish theater, The musical “Fiddler on the Roof” is based on his story “Tevye’s Daughters.” |
| 1909 |
Julius Rosenwald, American merchant and philanthropist, converts Sears, Roebuck and Co. into the largest mail-order house in the world. |
| 1909/10 |
Fed up with intolerable working conditions 20,000 shirtwaist makers, mostly immigrant Jewish girls and women, strike. As they walk the picket lines and are beaten and jailed, they inspire others in the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union to continue the struggle to improve workers’ lives. |
| 1911 |
A tragic fire in the Triangle shirtwaist Factory in New York’s Lower East Side kills 146 women, mostly Jews. The hazardous building conditions, which brought on the disaster, compel new and important factory safety legislation. |
| 1912 |
Henrietta Szold founds Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. |
| 1913 |
After a 13-year old girl is brutally murdered in an Atlanta pencil factory, its manager Leo Frank, is accused. Despite inconclusive evidence, he is sentenced to death. When the governor commutes that to life imprisonment, and angry mob lynches Frank in 1915. The case leads to the founding of the anti-Defamation League. Years later, an eyewitness confirms what Frank’s defenders had long believed—the “star witness” against Frank, the janitor of the pencil factory, was the murderer.
B’nai B’rith establishes the Anti-Defamation League to combat anti-Semitism in the United States. |
| 1914 |
Grossinger’s located on 1,200 acres in the Catskills, opens a boardinghouse for Jewish vacationers and eventually develops into a large-scale resort of national reputation. |
| 1915 |
Moses Alexander elected Governor of Idaho the first Jew to win the governorship of an American State. |
| 1916 |
Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jewish Justice of the US Supreme Court. |
| 1917 |
The National Jewish Welfare Board established to care for the religious needs of Jews serving in the US armed forces. |
| 1919 |
Jewish educational summer camping is launched in the United States with the founding of what come to be known as the Cejwin Camps. |
| 1920 |
Henry Ford’s newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, begins publishing anti-Semitic propaganda, including the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” |
| 1921 |
Immigrations laws “reformed” to effectively exclude Eastern European Jews and other immigrants. Further restrictions imposed in 1924. |
| 1922 |
Mordecai M. Kaplan founds the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a New York synagogue at which Reconstructionism, his philosophy of Judaism, is practiced. |
| 1923 |
Hillel is founded to serve the needs of Jewish university students. |
| 1930 |
Salo Wittmayer Baron joins the faculty of Columbia University; his is the first chair in Jewish history at a secular university in the United States. |
| 1931 |
The first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize, “Of Thee I Sing” composed by George Gershwin and written by George S. Kaufman, Ira Gershwin and Morris Ryskind. |
| 1933 |
Albert Einstein is among the first German Jews to flee Nazi Germany. He finds refuge in the United States.
The American Jewish Congress declares a boycott on German goods to protest the Nazi persecution of Jews. |
| 1934 |
American Jews cheer Detroit Tigers’ Hank Greenberg when he refuses to play ball on Yom Kippur. In 1938, with five games left to the season, Greenberg’s 58 home runs are two shy of Babe Ruth’s record. When several pitchers walk him rather than giving him a shot at the record. many believe major baseball did not want a Jew to claim that place in America’s national sport. |
| 1939 |
The SS St. Louis carrying several hundred Jewish refugees from Nazism denied permission to land at a US port. |
| 1939–1945 |
World War II: Americans and American Jews are deeply concerned about the rise of Nazism long before the United States is attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. By the end of the war, 6 million European Jews have been exterminated, and over half a million Jews have served in the US armed forces. |
| 1939 |
Irving Berlin introduces his song “God Bless America” Berlin who also wrote “White Christmas,” is one of a myriad of Jewish artists, writers, composers, actors and filmmakers who have immeasurably enriched American culture. |
| 1941 |
Some 20,000 attend a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden to protest Nazism. For the first time, President Roosevelt makes specific mention atrocities against Jews and declares that the American people will hold the perpetrators of these crimes to strict accountability in a future day of reckoning. |
| 1943 |
Raphael Lemkin, and international lawyer who escaped from Poland to the US in 1941, coins the term genocide to describe the Nazi extermination of European Jews. |
| 1944 |
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt establishes the War Refugee Board. For most victims of Nazism, this comes too late. |
| 1945 |
Bess Myerson becomes the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America Pageant. |
| 1945–1952 |
Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons who survived World War II win admission to the United States. Many are Jews. |
| 1947 |
The UN General Assembly, meeting in Flushing Meadows, New York, votes to partition Palestine into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state. |
| 1948 |
Brandeis University is established, the first secular university founded in the United States under Jewish auspices. |
| 1952 |
Microbiologist Selman Abraham Waksman, who coined the term antibiotic, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic against tuberculosis. |
| 1953 |
During the Cold War, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed, convicted of having delivered atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. |
| 1955 |
Epidemiologist Jonas Salk develops polio vaccine, the first effective weapon to combat the polio scourge. |
| 1950s |
As American Jews move to the suburbs, they build hundreds of new synagogues. Joining a synagogue becomes the chief expression of Jewish identity. In 1930, a mere 20 percent of American Jewish families belong to a synagogue; by 1960, nearly 60 percent do. |
| 1954 |
The phrase “under God” is added to the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 1958 |
Leonard Bernstein becomes the first American-born musician to be appointed Music Director and Conductor of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. |
| 1963 |
American feminist leader Betty Friedan writes “The Feminine Mystique” in which she identifies the premise of female inferiority on which the American notions of family and gender roles are based. |
| 1964 |
During Freedom Summer, tens of thousands of civil rights activists, many of them college students, descend upon Mississippi to register African-American voters. Half the whites heading south that summer are Jews. Tow, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, along with the African-American James Chaney, are murdered.
Sandy Koufax, Los Angeles Dodger pitcher, sets a baseball record when he pitches his fourth no-hitter in four years.
Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry founded following march to protest Soviet and anti-Jewish policies. |
| 1965 |
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the Immigration Act of 1965, which abolishes the national origins quota system. |
| 1967 |
Israel’s Six-Day-War: American Jews’ joy at Israel’s triumph spurs increasing numbers, and especially youth, to make pilgrimages to Israel. By the mid-1980, roughly a third of all American Jews have visited Israel. |
| 1972 |
Sally Priesand ordained, the first female rabbi in America. |
| 1973 |
The rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, rules that women may be counted toward the making of a minyan (quorum for public prayer). |
| 1977 |
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow wins Nobel Prize in Medicine for her role in developing radioimmunoassay. |
| 1978 |
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born author of Yiddish fiction who immigrated to the US in 1935 awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. |
| 1983 |
The faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary votes to open the rabbinical school to women, allowing them to become Conservative rabbis. |
| 1990 |
Life magazine’s list of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century includes 15 Jews: Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, Abraham Flexner, Betty Friedan, Milton Friedman, Edwin Land, William Levitt, Louis B. Mayer, J Robert Oppenheimer, William Paley, Jonas Salk, Alfred Stieglitz and Walter Winchell. |
| 1993 |
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opens in Washington, DC.
Steven Spielberg releases his Oscar-winning film “Schindler’s List”. |
| 2000 |
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman named first Jewish vice presidential candidate of a major political party. |
| September 2004 |
 Jews begin celebrating 350 years of American Jewish history. A concurrent Resolution of the Unites States Congress “honors and recognizes the 350th anniversary of the American Jewish community.” |
