Jewish New Amsterdam—A (very) Early History of Lower Manhattan
Sat, Dec 13
|55-57 St James Place - Chatham Square Cemetery
The Jewish History of New Amsterdam
Time & Location
Dec 13, 2025, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
55-57 St James Place - Chatham Square Cemetery
About the event
Soon after the establishment of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company (renamed "New York" after British conquest in 1664), the first 23 Jewish settlers to the New World arrived by boat from Brazil in 1654. Their cemetery, which was consecrated in 1683, still exists today and contains the oldest Jewish gravestone in North America. It sits unobtrusively in Lower Manhattan; almost no one suspecting the enormous history that this little plot contains.
Join us on Saturday, December 13th at 1:00pm as we capture the Jewish history of downtown Manhattan—from the Jewish neighborhood surrounding the notorious Five Points to the location of the first Synagogue in North America, Shearith Israel.
Highlights:
The oldest Jewish Cemetery in the US
Site of the first synagogue in the US
Site of the first kosher butcher shop in New York City