Joachim Gaunse (Ganz) lands on Roanoke Island; a year later he departs.
Holland captures Pernambuco, Brazil from the Portuguese and invites Jewish settlement. A significant Jewish community develops in Recife.
Solomon Franco remains in Boston for a brief period until "warned out".
Portugal recaptures Brazil from the Dutch and expels its 150 families. Most returned to Holland but twenty-three "souls big and little" traveled to New Amsterdam (then a Dutch colony and now New York) by way of Jamaica.
Jews win the right to settle in New Am twenty-three "souls big and little" traveled to New Amsterdam (then a Dutch colony and now New York) by way of Jamaica. sterdam and establish a Jewish community. From 1655-1664, New Amsterdam has an organized Jewish community.
The English conquer New Amsterdam and rename it New York.
Newport Jews buy a cemetery but there is no permanent community.
New York Jews worshipped in private homes until 1730, when they built the first synagogue in the American colonies, Shearith Israel. Congregation Shearith Israel is the oldest Jewish congregation in North America.
Savannah has an organized Jewish community. It does not become a permanent community until the 1790s.
The British Plantation Act offers Jews a limited form of citizenship.
Philadelphia Jewry has a cemetery and conducts services.
Portuguese is used for the last time in the official records of Shearith Israel, New York.
Organized Jewish communities exist in Newport, Rhode Island and Charleston, South Carolina.
New York Jewry has an all-day school.
Organized Jewish communities exist in Montreal and Philadelphia.
Newport builds its first synagogue.
After the Treaty of Paris is signed transferring Florida from Spain to Britain, Jews settle in Florida (Pensacola). From 1513 when Florida was discovered, only Catholics could live there for 250 years.
The British colonies in North America emerge as the United States of America.
New York State emancipates Jews.
Richmond has an organized Jewish community.
Philadelphia Jewry establishes the first immigrant aid society in the United States.
Charleston, South Carolina, Jewry establishes its first social welfare organization.
The Northwest Territory Act offers Jews equality in all future territories and states.
The United States Constitution is adopted by a majority of the states. Under federal laws – but not state laws – Jews are given full rights.
The Bill of Rights becomes part of the Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion.
Dr. Levi Myers of Georgetown, South Carolina is the first Jew to serve in a state legislature.
Charleston, South Carolina establishes the first American Jewish orphan care society.
The first United States Ashkenazic synagogue, Rodeph Shalom, is established in Philadelphia.
Rebecca Gratz helps organize the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society.
Moses Levy establishes first Jewish communal colony in America, in Micanopy, FL. Pilgrimage Plantation exists until 1835, attracting Jews from Europe.
Mordecai Manuel Noah proposes the founding of a Jewish colony on Grand Island, New York.
Isaac Leeser, the father of American modern Orthodoxy, becomes the hazzan-minister-rabbi of the Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia.
Substantial numbers of German Jews begin immigrating to the United States.
Penina Moïse of Charleston, S.C. publishes Fancy's Sketch Book, the first book of verse published by an American Jew.
The first passover Haggadah is printed in America and published by S.H. Jackson.
Rebecca Gratz establishes the first Jewish Sunday school in the United States in Philadelphia. It is Orthodox.
Abraham Rice, the first diplomate rabbi to officiate in America, takes office in Baltimore.
American Jews protest the persecution of Jews in Damascus.
Leo Merzbacher, Max Lilienthal, Isaac Mayer Wise, Bernhard Felsenthal, David Einhorn, Samuel Adler, and other German rabbis come to America to serve the new German congregations and are active in promoting reforms in Judaism.
Isaac Leeser, hazzan of the Sephardic synagogue of Philadelphia, publishes the Occident a strong advocate of Orthodoxy.
B'nai B'rith a mutual aid and fraternal order, is established.
David Levy Yulee brings Florida into statehood and becomes the first person of Jewish ancestry to serve in the US Senate.
Isaac Mayer Wise, the organizer of the American Jewish Reform movement, comes to the United States from Bohemia.
The first East European congregation in New York City is organized.
Isaac Leeser publishes an English translation of the Bible.
David Einhorn, a theological liberal, arrives in the United States.
Rabbi Isaac M. Wise calls a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, to organize American Jewry religiously on a national scale. It is unsuccessful.
Florida's first Jewish cemetery is established in Jacksonville.
In November the Board of Delegates of American Israelites is organized, the first attempt by American Jews to create an overall national Jewish organization.
The Jews of the United States meet in several towns, protesting the action of the papal authorities who seized Edgar Mortara, a Jewish child, and reared him as a Catholic.
Morris Raphall becomes the first rabbi to open a session of the United States Congress with prayer.
At least three Union officers of Jewish origin are breveted generals during the Civil War.
The United States government appoints army chaplains to serve Jews.
Judah P. Benjamin, formerly a United States senator, is appointed secretary of state of the Confederacy.
On December 17, General U.S. Grant expelled Jews as a class from his war zone on the charge that they engaged in commercial traffic with the South. The expulsion decree, General Orders Number 11, is speedily revoked by Lincoln.
Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor, lands in New York.
Isaac Leeser establishes Maimonides College, a short-lived rabbinical school.
A group of Reform rabbis under the leadership of Samuel Hirsch and David Einhorn meets in Philadelphia to publish the first statement on the Jewish Reform position in America.
Hazofeh B'eretz Hahadashah, the first Hebrew weekly in America, is published.
The Hebrew Union College is established in Cincinnati, Ohio, to prepare rabbis for all types of American Jewish synagogues.
Kalamazoo's B'nai Israel, the first synagogue in Michigan, is built. Isaac Mayer Wise officiates at the synagogue dedication in January of that year.
Felix Adler creates the Ethical Culture movement.
Florida's first Jewish congregation is founded in Pensacola.
New Hampshire is the last state to offer Jews political equality.
Joseph Seligman is refused admission to the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York.
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations publishes the first census of American Jewry: estimate: 250,000.
The pogroms in Russia impel East European Jews to immigrate to the United States in large numbers.
A Yiddish play is performed in New York City.
Emma Lazarus composes the poem "The New Colossus" to raise money to build a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. A plaque engraved with the poem is placed within the statue's pedestal in 1903.
Julius Houseman, an 1850s immigrant to Grand Rapids, is elected to the U.S. Congress - the only Michigan Jewish congressman until the 1970s
The Pittsburgh Platform is adopted by a number of left-wing Reform rabbis.
Kasriel H. Sarasohn launches Tageblatt , the first Yiddish daily paper, in New York City.
The Jewish Theological Seminary Association is formed.
The Conservative movement is established in New York.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, the nursery of Conservative Judaism opens in New York City.
The Jewish Publication Society of American is founded.
Several anti-Semitic works are published in New York City.
Socialists establish the United Hebrew Trades in New York CIty.
Rabbi Jacob Joseph is elected chief rabbi of New York's Orthodox. He accomplishes little, if anything.
Baron Maurice de Hirsch, European philanthropist, establishes the Baron de Hirsch Fund to further American Jewry, especially the East European émigrés.
The Central Conference of American Jewish Rabbis rejects the authority of halakhah, Jewish traditional oral law.
First issue of The American Jewess, the first English-language periodical for American Jewish women, edited by Rosa Sonneschein, is published. Last issue was published in1899.
The first American yeshiva of a European type (Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary) is founded in New York City.
At a meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise denounces the new Zionism of Theodor Herzl.
The socialist Jewish Daily Forward publishes its first issue in New York City.
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America is established.
The Federation of American Zionists is established in New York City.
The National Conference of Jewish Charities is organized. American Jewish Yearbook begins publication.
The Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle), dedicated to educational, social, and recreational purposes, commences its activities.
East European labor groups organize the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union.
The Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, is established.
The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada is formed.
Solomon Schechter is elected head of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He furthers Conservatism as a separate Jewish denomination.
Immigrant Jewish women in New York, Boston, and Chicago stage sometimes violent boycotts of kosher meat shops to protest increases in the price of meat.
The twelve-volume Jewish Encyclopedia is completed.
The American Jewish Committee, a secular defense organization, is established by the American Jewish elite.
Jewish students at Harvard establish the Menorah Society,a cultural organization.
During this year 153,748 Jewish immigrants arrive in the United States; most are East Europeans.
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise establishes the Free Synagogue.
Sidney Hillman arrives in the United States. Later he becomes a famous leader and a prominent New Deal politician.
Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning is chartered in Philadelphia as a graduate school awarding a Ph.D. degree.
Gifts from Jacob H. Schiff lead to the establishment of Jewish teachers' training programs at the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Hebrew Union College.
The Kehillah (Jewish community) of New York City is established. This is an unsuccessful attempt to organize New York City's East European Jews. Judah L. Magnes is its head.
The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) is formed.
"The Uprising of the 20,000," a mass strike mainly by young female garment workers (65% Jewish) in New York City revitalizes and transforms the labor movement by making the needs of women workers a priority.
The first Yiddish secular school system is established by the socialist Zionists, Poale Zion.
American Jewry succeeds in inducing Congress to abrogate the 1832 treaty with Russia because the czarist regime would not honor an American passport carried by an American Jew.
A fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory costs the lives of some 140 women. Most were Jews.
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League sets out to limit anti-Jewish agitation in the United States.
Labor Zionist Alliance (formerly Farband Labor Zionist Order) is established.
The Intercollegiate Menorah Association is organized.
The United Synagogues of America is organized.
The Promised Land by Mary Antin is published. It is an immigrant's evaluation of the United States.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee unites various American Jewish ethnic groups to salvage East European Jewry.
An English translation of the Hebrew Bible is published by the Jewish Publication Society of America.
United States enters World War I. About 200,000 Jews served in the armed forces.
The National Jewish Welfare Board is created to serve the religious needs of American Jews in the army and navy.
The British government issues the Balfour Declaration favoring the establishment of a homeland for Jews in Palestine.
On November 7 the Bolsheviks gain control of Russia.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, serving the Jewish and general press, is established.
The first American Jewish Congress meets in Philadelphia and sets out to induce the great powers meeting in paris to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine and to protect East European Jewry through the granting of minority rights.
Yiddish Art Theater is initiated by Maurice Schwartz.
The Women's League for Conservative Judaism is formed.
These years are a time of much anti-Jewish sentiment in the United States. Most notable is the anti-Jewish activity of Henry Ford, 1920-27.
Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent begins publishing anti-Semitic propaganda, including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Hadoar (Hebrew Periodical of Histadruth Ivrith) begins publication. It emphasizes the primacy of Hebrew in Jewish culture.
The Immigrant Act of 1921 and 1924 close America to East European Jews and others. This legislation is motivated, in part, by pseudo-scientific racial concepts.
Reconstructionism, created by Mordecai Kaplan, creates its first organized manifestation, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.
Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox organization, is established.
A permanent American Jewish Congress representing the Zionist-minded East European element is founded.
Hebrew Theological College opens in Chicago.
Stephen S. Wise founds the Jewish Institute of Religion, training rabbis (mostly for the Reform group) with a more national orientation than that given by Hebrew Union College.
The first B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation is established at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
A survey shows that there are Jews in 9,712 towns and rural districts. There are 4,228,000 Jews, 17,500 Jewish organizations, 3,118 congregations in the United States.
The National Conference of Christians and Jews is established to further interfaith activities in the United States.
The Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva grows into Yeshiva College, the first general institution of higher education under Jewish auspices.
The Union of Sephardic Congregations is organized.
The American Academy for Jewish Research is established.
The Jewish Agency is enlarged to embrace Zionists and non-Zionists to further the Jewish community in Palestine.
In the late 1930s German Jewish refugees start arriving in the United States.
The Council of Jewish Federations is established. It advises two hundred Jewish Federations in the US and Canada.
Nazis gain strength in Germany and anti-Semitic groups appear in this country.
The Jewish Labor Committee is established.
Judaism as a Civilization by Mordecai Kaplan is published and the Reconstructionist magazine appears.
Hank Greenberg Detroit Tigers' home run king, chooses not to play in a pennant game on Yom Kippur and attends services at Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis is taken over by Zionists in a political coup, one of the first steps toward the founding of neo-Reform.
The Rabbinical Council of America, an organization of the English-speaking Orthodox rabbis, is formed.
A survey shows 4,771,000 Jews in the United States and 3,728 congregations.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis adopts a somewhat pro-Zionist program.
Father Charles E. Coughlin, a Catholic Priest, denounces the Jews on the radio. His audience numbers in the millions.
In July an international conference meets at Evian to help refugee Jews. Very little is accomplished.
The British White Paper on Palestine is issued and immigration to that country is reduced to a trickle. World War II begins in Europe and the first news of the slaughter of the Polish Jews reaches America.
Felix Frankfurter becomes an associate justice of the US Supreme Court.
The United Jewish Appeal is founded to support Jewish humanitarian programs in the United States and abroad.
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research moves from Vilna, Lithuania, to New York City.
The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation is formed by Mordecai Kaplan.
American Zionists adopt the Biltmore Program, demanding the creation of a Jewish Palestine.
Jews in the United States become aware of the massacre of Jews in Eastern Europe by the invading Germans.
Some anti-Zionist Reform rabbi's and anti-Zionist laymen organize the American Council for Judaism, the one organization in American life that upholds the position that the Jews are only a religious group and in no way a nationalist group.
The American Jewish Conference recommends that Palestine become a Jewish commonwealth.
Jews become aware of the Holocaust. The American authorities, including high-ranking Jewish leaders, do little to induce Roosevelt to admit European Jewish refugees in substantial numbers to the United States. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. is an exception.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis adopts a resolution agreeing that both the Zionist and anti-Zionist positions are compatible with Reform Judaism.
Samuel Belkin becomes the president of Yeshiva College.
President Roosevelt establishes the War Refugee Board.
The National Society of Hebrew Day Schools (Torah Umesorah) is founded.
Yeshiva College become Yeshiva University.
The United States unleashes the atom bomb on the Japanese. Jews are among the nuclear scientists who perfect the atom, hydrogen, and neutron bombs.
Under directives of President Truman, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons are admitted to the United States; many are Jews.
The Jewish Museum of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America moves into the former Warburg mansion in New York City.
On November 29 the United Nations General Assembly votes to divide Palestine into two sovereign states, one Jewish and one Arab.
The American Jewish Archives is established on the campus of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.
Brandeis University is established in Waltham, Mass, as the first secular university in the United States under Jewish auspices.
On May 14 Israel declares its independence. The United States government immediately recognizes the new state.
On May 15 the British leave Palestine; the Arab armies soon attack Israel.
The Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Institute of Religion merge.
The major Reform organization, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, is moved from Cincinnati to New York City.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn succeeds his father-in-law as rebbe of the Lubavitch Hassidim.
The Federal Republic of Germany signs an agreement to pay Holocaust survivors and Jewish institutions outside Israel $822 million as reparations for the Holocaust.
Stern College for Women, first liberal arts women's college under Jewish auspices, is opened.
The Leo Baeck Institute is established in New York City.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, one of American Jewry's most powerful organizations, is formed.
Statistics in the American Jewish Year Book show a great increase in Jewish synagogue membership in the previous fifteen years, particularly in the Reform and Conservative groups, and a great increase in Jewish religious school attendance.
Israel, provoked by Arab marauders, invades Egyptian territory and is joined by England and France, but all withdraw their forces under United States and Soviet pressure.
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act that, on paper at least, fully guarantees all rights to blacks and Jews.
An Immigration and Nationality Act is passed. The quota system is revised, but the admission of immigrants is still rigorously limited.
Israel emerges victorious from the Six-Day War against Arab enemies.
The Reconstuctionist Rabbinical College is established.
The Association for Jewish Studies is formed.
The Jewish-American Hall of Fame is established in association with the Judah L. Magnes Museum.
Touro College is founded in New York City.
Ezrat Nashim, a study group, is created by young feminists in New York City. In 1972, they confront the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly with demands for ending Judaism's gender bias.
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion ordains the first woman rabbi, Sally Priesand.
The United Nations General Assembly declares Zionism "a form of racism and racial discrimination."
The National Museum of American Jewish History is established and situated on Philadelphia's Independence Mall, the only Museum in the nation dedicated exclusively to exploring and interpreting the American Jewish experience.
Rosalyn Yalow becomes the first American-born woman to win a Nobel Prize in science for her work developing a technique that detects the presence and level of particular hormones and enzymes.
The Council of American Jewish Museums is founded under the auspices of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.
The Jewish Theological Seminary faculty votes to ordain women as rabbis.
The U.S.S.R. falls apart. Numerous Russian Jews immigrate to the United States.
The Israelis and Palestinian Arabs seek to reconcile their political differences.
The opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and the release of the popular film Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg heighten public awareness of the Holocaust throughout the United States.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton.
Death of Menahem Mendel Schneerson, seventh Lubavitcher rebbe, who spread his movement across the United States and the world. His demise heightens messianic fervor among some of his followers, while the Lubavitch movement continues to grow.
New “Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism” invites Reform Jews to engage in a dialogue with tradition and calls for renewed attention to mitzvot, sacred obligations.
Senator Joseph Lieberman nominated for the vice-presidency on the Democratic Party ticket, the first Jew ever to be nominated for this post by a major political party. The ticket wins a plurality of the votes, but loses the election.
Historian Deborah Lipstadt is vindicated in libel suit brought by Holocaust denier, April 11, 2000
Resolution urging President George W. Bush to proclaim a Jewish American Heritage Month is unanimously passed in the House of Representatives.
Resolution urging President George W. Bush to proclaim a Jewish American Heritage Month is unanimously passed in the Senate. President Bush proclaims May Jewish American Heritage Month.
President Barack Obama hosts first-ever White House reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month.
Jewish astronaut Garrett Reisman carries the 2006 presidential proclamation declaring May Jewish American Heritage Month to the International Space Station on board the space shuttle Atlantis. Upon its return from space, the document was given by the Jewish Museum of Florida to the new National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
Daniel Kahneman, a pioneering scholar of psychology, receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After escaping Nazi occupation in World War II, Dr. Kahneman immigrated to Israel, where he served in the Israel Defense Forces and trained as a psychologist, earning the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.
Aly Raisman named the captain of the 2016 Summer Olympics U.S. women's gymnastics team. She also becomes the first U.S. gymnast to win two consecutive medals in the floor final (gold in 2012, silver in 2016).
Timeline, in part, is courtesy of americanjewisharchives.org