Remnant of Israel: A Portrait of America’s First Jewish Congregation

Once, over Shabbat lunch at the lovely little restaurant attached to Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, I was told a joke told by Augustus Gomez De Mesquita—(“but you must call me ‘Gus’”)—the ninety-year-old scion of the illustrious family of cantors at that venerable institution, apropos his long and lofty-sounding name. It seems that the concierge at an American hotel, when requested to call a cab for a visiting English Sephardi gentleman (let’s call him Moshe Kohen de los Gatos Rojas, Baron d’Aguilar y Trujillo, Mayordomo Principal de la Casa del Rey y Barrendero de las Escaleras Traseras) was nonplussed by such an embarrassment of nomenclatural riches, and stuttered in reply, “But sir, we haven’t got a cab that’ll hold all those gentlemen!”

“All those gentlemen”—whom Stephen Birmingham dubbed “The Grandees” in his eponymous popular history of the Sephardic elite in America—are somewhat of a mystery, indeed, to most American Jews and certainly to most Americans, as are Sephardic Jews more generally, as the latter immigrations of Jews to America were so vast and so heavily Ashkenazic. Yet this does not mean that Sephardic Jews are unknown. Jews of Spanish-Portuguese descent have yet been intimately involved in the life of Jewish communities in America, and of the American scene at large. Think of Benjamin N. Cardozo, of Emma Lazarus, of Uriah Philips Levy, of the Gomez and the Hendricks families. Paradoxically, while not making a particularly big deal of the fact that they were Jews (though the fact was often raised by others), their involvement in American affairs was often intrinsically informed by their Jewishness.

Rabbi Angel has taken an active interest in the history of his congregation for the sake of chinuch rather than nostalgia or pride.

Institutional histories come and go, often written for internal consumption and commonly producing nary a ripple on the consciousness of the general public. But Rabbi Marc Angel’s new book, Remnant of Israel, A Portrait of America’s First Jewish Congregation, Shearith Israel, tells the story of a very important congregation, not only the mother congregation of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community in America, but, as the title insists, the first Jewish congregation in America. This would be enough to insure its place on the shelves and tables of many different kinds of Jews and Americans. But readers will rejoice to find the fascinating history of this congregation presented in such an accessible, thoughtfully compiled and beautifully presented volume. When Rabbi Angel joined the congregation in 1969, Shearith Israel was 315 years old. This year, it is 350, an institution coterminous with the settlement of Jews in America. And Rabbi Angel, the much-celebrated author of many works of history and halachah, focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on the cultural and intellectual world of Sephardic Jewry, is the best possible choice to chart the venerable history of his institution. The spectrum of Jewish experience has shown us time and again that institutions—regardless of how old or distinguished—are dinosaurs if they cannot learn the lessons of their own histories and proceed forward into the future with them. History for the sake of history is a vain and fruitless endeavor. Rabbi Angel has taken an active interest in the history of his congregation for the sake of chinuch rather than nostalgia or pride, without the sentimentality that causes one to rest on one’s laurels and to live in the past.

The book’s eight chapters lucidly paint a picture of a quintessentially American, and simultaneously proudly, Jewish congregation. Anyone who has visited Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, or Bevis Marks or Maida Vale in London, knows that each Spanish Portuguese congregation has its own unique character and traditions, small but often telling variations that characterize each one. Rabbi Angel details the history of his congregation with love and reverence, and one gets a sense of the place from his prose. The personalities come to life as well. Over the years, I have read many articles about individuals who were connected with Shearith Israel—descriptions of the lives of persons who happened to be members of this congregation. Remnant of Israel is able to demonstrate the compelling nature of the institution, and one can easily see how it helped form the character and the priorities of many important and influential Americans. In the chapter that discusses the institutional, charitable and communal outreach of Shearith Israel, we see the largesse that characterized the charitable priorities of the congregation and the intersection of the life of the congregation, not only with its important and influential members, but also with the wider community.

Rabbi Angel manages to capture the grandeur, but he also informs us of the small, yet omnipresent, connections to the humbler buildings of the congregation’s past, incorporated into its present architectural tour de force.

Shearith Israel is a congregation that aspires to (and achieves) a high aesthetic. From the Louis Comfort Tiffany glass interior to the gravitas of its liturgy and the choreography of its ritual, it is a grand place. Rabbi Angel manages to capture the grandeur, but he also informs us of the small, yet omnipresent, connections to the simpler and humbler buildings of the congregation’s past, incorporated into its present architectural tour de force. The building is a metaphor for the institution—solemn, grand and venerable. Yet it is also bright, delicate, fine and open. This comes across very well in the book, with its magnificent illustrations in fine color and clear black and white.

It is difficult to write the history of an institution in a couple of hundred pages—much must be abbreviated, much left out. Remnant of Israel manages to preserve and to present that which is most essential, giving us not only the facts, but also a glimpse of the heart and soul of an institution most of us are unfamiliar with, in a way that only encourages us to want to know it better. Anecdotal asides and interesting facts enliven the presentation. We learn in a sidebar, for instance, that the women’s gallery contains “skeptic lamps”—half-gas, half-electric hybrids installed when the utility, safety and long-term viability of electricity was still being questioned by some members. Ultimately, the gas jets in the lower parts of the lamps were replaced by electricity, but only with much sensitivity and after due consideration. Is this not a metaphor for thoughtful change within tradition more generally, and for the way Shearith Israel has comported itself? This sense of deliberation, along with openness, to the world and its rich panoply of possibility are so essentially characteristic of Spanish and Portuguese Jewry. The American Sephardic community is one that has adamantly (and admirably) refused to carve itself up into denominations. There, the advocates, so to speak, of the warm old glow of gas, and the chassidim of bright, newfangled electricity live alongside one another, so that each member, regardless of level of observance, can lay equal claim to its long historical lineage and a precious religio-cultural legacy. Rabbi Angel’s wonderful new book goes a long way towards revealing the history of that community in all its richness, and I for one, am grateful to him for the glimpse he has given us.

Professor Epstein has been teaching at Vassar College since 1992, and was its first director of Jewish Studies. He has written on various topics in Jewish art, among them, Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature(Pennsylvania, 1997). He is currently writing a new book, Overthrowing the Idols: A Radical Reappraisal of Jewish Visual Culture. Previously, he served as director of the Hebrew Books and Manuscripts division of Sotheby’s Judaica Department, and continues to serve as a consultant to various libraries, auction houses, museums and private collectors throughout the world.