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A ‘Landing Day’ ceremony in Lower Manhattan celebrates the first Jewish community in the US
(New York Jewish Week) — When a small group of people convened next to an inconspicuous plaque steps from the entrance to the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal earlier this week, they weren’t there to catch a boat leaving the island.
Instead, they had come to the southern tip of Manhattan to celebrate a ship that had arrived on its shores centuries before.
The gathering on Wednesday was the 369th anniversary of an event most New Yorkers don’t know about, let alone celebrate: the arrival of the first Jewish community to the United States in 1654. That lack of awareness is exactly what Howard Teich, the founding chair of a group called the Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative, hopes to change.
That year, a group of 23 Sephardic Jews arrived on the shores of New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony located on the island. In the centuries since, the city and its image have been shaped in no small part by its Jewish denizens — from Emma Lazarus to Ed Koch to Nora Ephron.
In hosting the “Landing Day” ceremony, Teich’s ultimate goal is for Jews in the city with the world’s largest Jewish population to gather every year to celebrate their culture and accomplishments.
“We just have to change the narrative of the community right now,” Teich told the New York Jewish Week, adding that he felt Jewish communal discourse was at times overly focused on fear and division. “We’ve got to spread a positive message of who we are, what we’ve accomplished, how we’ve worked with other people, what we’ve started, the difference we’ve made in the time we’ve been here and, really, what America has meant to us as a people.”
Wednesday’s ceremony was held at Peter Minuit Plaza, next to a flagpole adorned with a plaque that reads: “Erected by the State of New York to honor the memory of the twenty three men, women and children who landed in September 1654 and founded the first Jewish community in North America.”
Donated by the State of New York, it is called the Jewish Tercentenary Monument and was put up in The Battery in 1954 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Jews’ arrival. That year, events were held for months across New York and the United States to celebrate, but in the decades since, there have only been a handful of gatherings at the site. None of the events and pronouncements associated with a Landing Day celebration in 2004, for the 350th anniversary, took place near the monument.
Teich aims to revitalize the celebration, and he hopes an annual event will take place at the plaza each fall.
“Now is the time,” he said. “[This ceremony] was supposed to show the positive of a community that’s really excelled in freedom. It’s incredible what’s been established in America and in New York in particular as a center of American Jewry to a large extent. That’s what I want to see celebrated.”
For Wednesday’s ceremony, Teich partnered with the Battery Conservancy, the New York Board of Rabbis and dozens of other Jewish and historical organizations across the city. Local and state politicians were also in attendance, including City Councilmember Gale Brewer, State Assembly Members Rebecca Seawright and Alex Bores, and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Elias Levy, the Jewish consul general of Panama in New York, was also present.
“I want our monuments to come alive,” Warrie Price, the president of the Battery Conservancy, said in a speech. “I ask all of you to make this monument as relevant as it was in 1954, because its values and what it symbolizes are as true today as ever. We are still a landing site. We will never stop being a landing site. As New Yorkers and as a people of consciousness, we care and we will find the solutions to continue being a landing site.”
Along with speeches and music, which included Ladino and Hebrew versions of “Shalom Aleichem” and “Ein Keloheinu” from Rabbi Cantor Jill Hausman; a klezmer clarinet performance from the musician Zisel; and a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from singer Hannie Ricardo, attendees also heard a short history of the Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam from Bradley Shaw, a historian at the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy.
Like so many immigrants to New York City who came after them, the Jews who landed in Manhattan in 1654 were fleeing persecution. In this case, they were escaping the Portuguese, who had conquered the Dutch colony of Brazil where the Jews had been living and instituted the Catholic Church’s Inquisition.
As it happens, just weeks before the group of 23 landed, three Ashkenazi Jews — Jacob Barsimson, Solomon Pietersen and Asser Levy, who was the New World’s first kosher butcher and Jewish homeowner — had come to New Amsterdam from Europe. Those three men greeted the group. When Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch director-general of New Amsterdam, originally rejected the new refugees — saying he wanted to establish a colony solely for Dutch Reformed Christians — Levy advocated on their behalf.
“The question I have is, did they have a minyan?” Shaw said, referring to a traditional Jewish prayer quorum of 10 men. The group had arrived just before Rosh Hashanah.
“The answer is, I really don’t know,” he said. “But that said, they might have. They had the four men from the boat and the three that were here. And of the children, there might have been one or two that were bar mitzvahed,” or over 13 years old.
With Levy’s help, along with urging from the Dutch West India Company, which counted many Sephardic Jews among their investors, the group stayed. Eventually, they established the Mill Street Synagogue, the first congregation in the United States. It eventually became Congregation Shearith Israel, or the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, whose building is now on West 70th Street.
According to the most recent estimates, the five boroughs are now home to more than 1 million Jews.
“Usually you come to a strange place and the first thing you look for is a synagogue,” said a woman at the ceremony who wished to remain anonymous, and who did not know the history of the Jews’ arrival before the event. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the first ones to arrive.”
Teich wants to build momentum for the 400th anniversary of Landing Day — just 31 years away.
“There’s a real continuity that we need to appreciate,” he said. “That’s who we should be as a people — we have 5,000 years of history and nearly 400 here. It’s quite something.”
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The post A ‘Landing Day’ ceremony in Lower Manhattan celebrates the first Jewish community in the US appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really?
JNS.org – If I asked you to name the most famous line in the Bible, what would you answer? While Shema Yisrael (“Hear O’Israel”) might get many votes, I imagine that the winning line would be “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). Some religions refer to it as the Golden Rule, but all would agree that it is fundamental to any moral lifestyle. And it appears this week in our Torah reading, Kedoshim.
This is quite a tall order. Can we be expected to love other people as much as we love ourselves? Surely, this is an idealistic expectation. And yet, the Creator knows us better than we know ourselves. How can His Torah be so unrealistic?
The biblical commentaries offer a variety of explanations. Some, like Rambam (Maimonides), say that the focus should be on our behavior, rather than our feelings. We are expected to try our best or to treat others “as if” we genuinely love them.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in his classic text called the Tanya, argues that the actual feelings of love are, in fact, achievable provided that we focus on a person’s spirituality rather than how they present themselves physically. If we can put the soul over the body, we can do it.
Allow me to share the interpretation of the Ramban (Nachmanides), a 13th-century Torah scholar from Spain. His interpretation of the verses preceding love thy neighbor is classic and powerful, yet simple and straightforward.
“Do not hate your brother in your heart. You shall rebuke him, but do not bear a sin because of him” by embarrassing him in public. “Do not take revenge, and do not bear a grudge against your people. You shall love your fellow as yourself, I am God” (Leviticus 19:17-18).
What is the connection between these verses? Why is revenge and grudge-bearing in the same paragraph as love your fellow as yourself?
A careful reading shows that within these two verses are no less than six biblical commandments. But what is their sequence all about, and what is the connection between them?
The Ramban explains it beautifully, showing how the sequence of verses is deliberate and highlighting the Torah’s profound yet practical advice on how to maintain healthy relationships.
Someone wronged you? Don’t hate him in your heart. Speak to him. Don’t let it fester until it bursts, and makes you bitter and sick.
Instead, talk it out. Confront the person. Of course, do it respectfully. Don’t embarrass anyone in public, so that you don’t bear a sin because of them. But don’t let your hurt eat you up. Communicate!
If you approach the person who wronged you—not with hate in your heart but with respectful reproof—one of two things will happen. Either he or she will apologize and explain their perspective on the matter. Or that it was a misunderstanding and will get sorted out between you. Either way, you will feel happier and healthier.
Then you will not feel the need to take revenge or even to bear a grudge.
Here, says the Ramban, is the connection between these two verses. And if you follow this advice, only then will you be able to observe the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor. If you never tell him why you are upset, another may be completely unaware of his or her wrongdoing, and it will remain as a wound inside you and may never go away.
To sum up: Honest communication is the key to loving people.
Now, tell me the truth. Did you know that not taking revenge is a biblical commandment? In some cultures in Africa, revenge is a mitzvah! I’ve heard radio talk-show hosts invite listeners to share how they took “sweet revenge” on someone, as if it’s some kind of accomplishment.
Furthermore, did you know that bearing a grudge is forbidden by biblical law?
Here in South Africa, people refer to a grudge by its Yiddish name, a faribel. In other countries, people call it a broiges. Whatever the terminology, the Torah states explicitly: “Thou shalt not bear a grudge!” Do not keep a faribel, a broiges or resentment of any kind toward someone you believe wronged you. Talk to that person. Share your feelings honestly. If you do it respectfully and do not demean the other’s dignity, then it can be resolved. Only then will you be able to love your fellow as yourself.
May all our grudges and feelings of resentment toward others be dealt with honestly and respectfully. May all our grudges be resolved as soon as possible. Then we will all be in a much better position to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The post Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday dismissed as nonsensical the report that President Donald Trump would endorse Palestinian statehood during his tour to the Persian Gulf this week.
“This report is nonsense,” Huckabee harrumphed on his X account, blasting the Jerusalem Post as needing better sourced reporting. “Israel doesn’t have a better friend than the president of the United States.”
Trump is set to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The leader’s first trip overseas since he took office comes as Trump seeks the Gulf countries’ support in regional conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and curbing Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
However, reports citing administration insiders claimed that Trump has also set his sights on the ambitious goal of expanding the Abraham Accords. These agreements, initially signed in 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The accords are widely held to be among the most important achievements of the first Trump administration.
The post ‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Unless significant progress is registered in Sunday’s round of nuclear talks with Iran, the US will consider putting the military option back on the table, sources close to US envoy Steve Witkoff told i24NEWS.
American and Iranian representatives voiced optimism after the previous talks that took place in Oman and Rome, saying there was a friendly atmosphere despite the two countries’ decades of enmity.
However the two sides are not believed to have thrashed out the all-important technical details, and basic questions remain.
The source has also underscored the significance of the administration’s choice of Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director, as the lead representative in the nuclear talks’ technical phases.
Anton is “an Iran expert and someone who knows how to cut a deal with Iran,” the source said, saying that the choice reflected Trump’s desire to secure the deal.
The post US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.