VI
AMERICA AND THE JEWS[ToC]
America has often been described as the land of opportunity and of unlimited possibilities. This is one reason why since our entry into the War, the eyes of the whole world have been fixed upon us. It is certainly true that to no group of people has America proved more truly a land of opportunity than to the Jews. A mere survey of the American period of Jewish history is sufficient to convince us of this, and such a survey is especially appropriate at present when the history of the world is being recast and remade, and the future destiny of both America and the Jew is a subject of frequent discussion.
In no other country do we find the strands of Jewish history so intimately and continually interwoven with the general fabric as here in America. This is due partly to the newness of the country and the early arrival of Jewish settlers. Even in the study of Palestine, we find that there was a time when it contained no Jewish inhabitants, and various strata of civilization already had disappeared when the Jews took possession. As for America, however, the Jew's activity is co-extensive with the history of her civilization.
I shall not dwell here on the well-known fact that Jews were associated with Columbus in his voyage of discovery, that Jews supported his enterprise financially and scientifically, and that a Marrano Jew is said to have been the first member of Columbus's crew to step on the soil of the New World. But it is certain that from the very days of the discovery, Jews became frequent on the American continent, first in South and Central America, and later on in North America.
The finding of the New World offered timely compensation for the expulsion from Spain, and Israel lost no time in transferring his genius for enterprise and continuity, both material and spiritual, to the new field so providentially opened.
By the middle of the seventeenth century, we see the beginnings of Jewish migration to North America, owing primarily to vicissitudes of war in South America, and as that was the time when English civilization began to establish itself here, the form of civilization destined to remain permanent, we can see with what right we may speak of the continuity of Jewish history in our Republic.