ABSTRACT
Judaism entered what would become the United States immediately after the Dutch lost control of Recife, Brazil, to the Portuguese. The initial group settled in New York City Tel: (then New Amsterdam) and a second group found their way to Newport, Rhode Island. By the time of the American Revolution there were six established congregations. During the nineteenth century, especially after the fall of Napoleon, German Jews within whom the spirit of reform blossomed, arrived and began to develop the Reform Jewish movement. The Germans dominated the community through the century, but their dominance was challenged when the 1881 pogroms in Russia set off a massive wave of immigration of Eastern European Jews. The community grew from several hundred thousand to several million by the time immigration was cut off in the 1920s.
