ABSTRACT
The first group of Jewish immigrants to New Amsterdam, some twenty-three in number, arrived in September 1654, 1 the same year that Jews came to Curaçao and other areas in the Caribbean, and a little before their arrival in London. 2 A majority, but not all, who came to New York were Sephardim, but by 1720 and onward these were rapidly replaced by Ashkenazim. 3 Exact census figures are not easily gained, but for most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Jews represented about 1% of the total New York City population. There were some variations. In 1700, there were seventeen households listed in assessment rolls, or 2% of the population—in 1722 twenty households are named or 1.5%. A peak of thirty-one families was recorded in 1728, about 2.3% of the population. This was followed by a gradual decline to nineteen families in 1734, or 1.2%. In that year, Jews paid 1.9% of the city's taxes. In 1722, they had paid 2%. As a group they were slightly more affluent than their neighbors. After 1734, there are no extant assessment lists for New York City, so population figures are hazardous, but it is fairly safe to rely on the 1% figure for the remaining period, although it may have been more. 4
