The Changes in Brooklyn and New York City Through the Ages

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               
                                                

    Brooklyn, New York , the most Jewish spot on earth, they once said of it.   

Brooklyn, New York !  How was it that so many Jews came from there?  It seemed to me that all Jews from New York came from Brooklyn.  I met one from there and married him, here in Portland, Oregon.

By 1910, New York City became the world's largest Jewish city, as more than 1 million Jews accounted for 25 percent of the city's population. As of 2023, about 960,000 residents of New York City, or about 10% of its residents, were Jewish.  

 New York is much more than Manhattan, and this area is a great proof of that. In the heart of Brooklyn, south of Williamsburg, you'll find a neighborhood worth exploring.

Brooklyn  is a part of New York City, and it is one of the city's five boroughs. The other four boroughs are Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island.  

Brooklyn has the largest Jewish population in the United States, with a diverse mix of secular and religious Jews, including a very large ultra-Orthodox community concentrated in areas like South Williamsburg. The borough's Jewish history dates back to 1654, and it has been a major center for different movements, including the Satmar and Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic groups. Today, the Jewish population includes 600,000 people, with strong community organizations and institutions. 

Jews have congregated in Brooklyn due to a combination of factors, including a large influx of immigrants seeking refuge, the borough's affordability compared to Manhattan, the establishment of community infrastructure, and the development of a vibrant and distinct identity. Major waves of Eastern European immigration, especially after the late 19th century pogroms, led many Jews to settle in Brooklyn as an overflow from crowded Manhattan neighborhoods. Later, the arrival of Holocaust survivors and the development of specific religious communities, including Hasidic groups, continued to build and shape Jewish life in Brooklyn. 

                                 The Dutch West India Company (Dutch: Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie) was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. The company became instrumental in the largely ephemeral Dutch colonization of the Americas (including New Netherland) in the seventeenth century. From 1624 to 1654, in the context of the Dutch–Portuguese War, the GWC held Portuguese territory in northeast Brazil, but they were ousted from Dutch Brazil following fierce resistance.                                     

Peter Stuyvesant was a Dutch colonial administrator who served as the director-general of New Netherland from 1647 to 1664, when the colony was provisionally ceded to the Kingdom of England.  The colony of New Netherland was located in what are now parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Dutch settlers laid the foundation for cities that still exist today. Beverwijck, once a center of the fur trade, is now Albany, New York. New York City was originally called New Amsterdam, and New Castle, Delaware was once known as New Amstel.

Jewish history in New York dates back to 1654 when 23 Jewish  refugees from Recife, Brazil, were stranded in a boat off of New Amsterdam and a man named Peter Stuyvesant didn't want Jews to land. Remember that the Mayflower ship from Holland arrived on North America-the Boston area, in 1620.   It turned out that New Amsterdam had a large company from Brazil there, who gave Peter his paycheck. So Peter had to allow them to land. Jews went through the usual difficulties;  being denied certain civic rights and had to have permission to engage in crafts.  These rights came to them gradually and the naturalization law accepted only on in 1715. 

At first they were not allowed to erect a synagogue, with the first mention in 1693. This was a Sephardi congregation, Shearith Israel, unique until an Ashkenazi synagogue, B'nai Jeshserun was founded in 1825.   

It took time but by 1812, there were 400 Jews in New York, probably with more Ashkenazis. Immigratioin from Europe grew in the 1820s and 1830's and the Jewish population in 1846 was 10,000! In 1854 there were 14 synagogues.   By the end of the 19th century, there were in New York, including Brooklyn, 250,000 Jews.  In 1927 there were over 1,000 synagogues,  and by 1940, over 2 million Jewish people.    Williamsburg, New York 

In recent decades the Jewish population has declined numerically and may continue to do so.  This is due to the limited immigration, departure to other regions such as Israel, or the USA, and especially the movement to suburban areas and neighboring towns.   The estimated Jewish population for Greater New York in 1992 was 1,671,000.  Their birth rate is slightly lower than among the general white population;  fewer Jews under 45 and more over 45.  Members in a family is lower than other people.  Housewives have a higher % than in the general population.  Jewish occupations are prominent among proprietors, managers, salesmen, office workers, and the liberal professions less in handicrafts, manual labor, and in the services.  Over 66% of Jews engaged in non-manual work, while the general population had only 50%.   

Jews go for education.  They have rabbinical colleges of all 3 trends (Yeshiva Univ., the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion).

New York has 650 Orthodox synagogues, besides private prayer houses,  150 Conservative, and 77 Reform by 1992.  They had 300,000 Jewish children of school-age from 6-15 of which half received a Jewish education.  

A problem showing up in recent decades is a growth in tension between Jews and Blacks in New York City.  It come about with Jews being landlords and Blacks being the renters and the expected problems. 

Large-scale Muslim immigration significantly increased after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, leading to major growth in the 1970s and beyond. 

• 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: This act abolished ethnic quotas, paving the way for a massive increase in immigration from Muslim-majority countries.
• 1970s onwards: Waves of immigrants arrived from Asia and Africa, and in later decades, Muslim refugees from war-torn regions and skilled workers arrived from countries like Pakistan, Senegal, and Yemen. Many of these new immigrants settled in the outer boroughs.
• Jews usually voted for Democrats.  It was they, who allowed them in
• when FDR was President, they came to believe.  Franklin D. Roosevelt was president from 1933 to 1945. He served as the 32nd president and was the only president to be elected to four terms, serving until his death in office on April 12, 1945.  The differences then were that the Democrats were for the small businesses and the Republicans for the Big Businesses. Most Jews had to go into business for themselves because anti-Semitism prevailed everywhere and wouldn't hire Jews, so they had to become self reliant people.     Anti-semitism abounded then;  not allowing Jews into places like social clubs, wherever.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia