350 Years ago, the Jews were landing...

The Citizen Stranger
By JONATHAN ROSEN


ome time in late summer, 350 years ago, 23 Jews arrived in what was then New Amsterdam, beginning one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of an already remarkable Diaspora. It is tempting to picture a single, symbolic boat carrying George Gershwin, Jonas Salk, Groucho Marx, Meyer Lansky, Emma Goldman, Hank Greenberg and an untold number of garment workers, accountants, public school teachers and dermatologists. But that first wave of immigrants - if 23 men, women and children can be called a wave - were refugees from Recife, Brazil, which had passed from the Dutch to the Portuguese and was now open to the Inquisition and closed to Jews.


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