350 years and counting

Thanks to Eszter Hargittai of Crooked Timber for pointing out that today is Arrival Day, marking 350 years since the arrival of Jews in (North) America. Eszter has some thoughts, as does Jonathan Dresner of Cliopatra. The Head Heeb, Jonathan Edelstein, has an extensive list of links to other posts marking the milestone.

My own contributions are modest:

- First, an interesting tidbit that I only learned this summer. The first Jews to arrive in America came not from Europe, but from Brazil. Well, they weren't originally from Brazil, of course, but once the Portuguese regained control of Brazil, the Jews there feared persecution and headed elsewhere.

- Second, the only substantial work I've done that might be considered Jewish history. In 1858, officials of the Catholic Church took custody of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy of Bologna, on the grounds that he had been secretly baptized and could not, therefore, be raised by Jews. Last year, I looked into the American response to the Mortara Affair and found that Americans overwhelmingly supported Edgardo's parents' attempts to regain custody and, in the process, roundly criticized the Catholic Church. A lot of that has to do with the nativism of the period, of course, but what's fascinating here is that Jews were not subjected to the same persecution as Catholics. For more details, read the paper.

- Finally, go check out the National Museum of Jewish History, where I interned this summer. The website's new, and has lots of great content, including some great online exhibitions and information about the new museum (construction is scheduled to begin next year).