Jewish Life in the Colonies

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: 250 Years of the Declaration of Independence · Jul 16, 2025 · 53m

with Andrew Sola and Prof. Tobias Brinkmann (Penn State)

In this episode, Andrew Sola and Tobias Brinkmann explore the history of the earliest Jews in the Colonies.

Topics include the following:

-The arrival in 1654 of the first Jewish ship in New Amsterdam, which was governed by Peter Stuyvesant (who is featured in the photo, arriving in New Amsterdam for the first time)

-The story of Asser Levy, perhaps the first Jewish inhabitant of the North American colonies

-The status of early Jews in Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies

-Jew and Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

-Roger…