The Jews of Dutch America

The first half of the eighteenth century undoubtedly represents the most flourishing period of Dutch America in practically every respect and also the most flourishing phase by far of the Jewish communities in Dutch America. At that time, the Sephardic congregations of Curaçao and Suriname were the largest and commercially most important Jewish communities to be found anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, and it was during the eighteenth century that the Jews of the Dutch American colonies exerted their greatest impact on the economic, political, and cultural life of the New World as a whole. The two principal Jewish communities