The Grandees

The New World’s earliest Jewish immigrants and their unique, little-known history: A New York Times bestseller from the author of Life at the Dakota . In 1654, twenty-three Jewish families arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) aboard a French privateer. They were the Sephardim, members of a proud orthodox sect that had served as royal advisors and honored professionals under Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal but were then exiled from their homeland by intolerant monarchs. A small, closed, and