Come celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month with us

Celebrate Jewish American

Heritage Month

We are celebrating Jewish American Heriage Month with a fact-a-day program. Every day we will be posting a new fact that we found on our Facebook Page and Twitter (@JCRCAtlanta). We will also be sharing other links and sources of information as we go, so please share! We would love to have your suggstions to add to our resources!

You can also sign up for a daily email through the month of May.

May 1

The first organized Jewish community in what became the United States was established in 1654 when 23 Jews from Recife, Brazil, left to escape the Inquisition reestablished by the Portuguese in that part of Brazil. These Jews settled in New Amsterdam, which later became New York. They established Congregation Shearith Israel, which endures as the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States.The community meets at a new site on Central Park West and 70th Street in a newer synagogue building dedicated in 1897.

In 1658 Congregation Jeshuat Israel was founded in Newport, Rhode Island. Each of these original synagogue communities were Sephardic.

Land of the Free

“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. . . . For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid .”

President George Washington, 1790,

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.

We look forward to conncting with our Jewish peoplehood and through our shared heritage. Feel free to share with the links below! Contact Leslie Anderson at info@jcrcatlanta.org or 770-366-7686 with questions, concerns or ideas.

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