The city now known as the Big Apple began life as a Dutch colonial settlement, taking the name New York in 1664. Chosen as the capital of New Netherland and given municipal rights on February 2 1653, it had a population of just 5,000 by 1700 but by the time of American independence that had grown to about 25,000.
There are now near to 19 million people in New York State; it is estimated that more than 1.6 million of them are Jewish. It wasn’t always that way; the first Jewish community arrived in 1654.
Most were Spanish or Portuguese Jews who had fled the inquisition and arrived by way of Brazil. The community remained largely Sephardic until the 19th century, when large numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Pale arrived in the city and its surrounds.
Jewish life became organised, with summer camps, schools, immigrant societies and of course synagogues. Edwin Einstein, the first New York Jew to serve in congress took his seat in 1879.
