Jewish Merchants in the New World: 1500-1800

A Conference Sponsored by the Gomez Foundation for Mill House

Conference Participants' Bios

Dr. Jonathan Ray is the Samuel Eig Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies in the Theology Department at Georgetown University. He holds a B.A. from Tufts University in History and Religion, and a Ph.D. in Jewish History from The Jewish Theological Seminary. He has studied in Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Argentina, and has taught at Yale University and UCLA. Prof. Ray specializes in medieval and early modern Jewish history, focusing on the Sephardic world. His research explores the “convivencia” or coexistence among Christian, Muslim and Jewish societies in Iberia and throughout the broader Mediterranean world. His recent book, The Sephardic Frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia (Cornell University Press, 2006), examines the transition of Jewish communities from Muslim to Christian Spain during the High Middle Ages. He is currently working on a book that will look at the formation of the Sephardic Diaspora in the wake of 1492. This project will discuss some of the ways in which the Iberian exiles drew social and political boundaries between themselves and other Jews, and how this process reflects the conception and creation of their own identity.

Currently Executive Director of the Gomez Foundation for Mill House (12/1999-present), Dr. Ruth Abrahams served as Executive Director of the Lehman College Foundation, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Pratt Institute, Senior Editor for Professional Development at Peat Marwick Mitchell, and Alumni Director at New York University. Artistically, Dr. Abrahams sang semi-professionally in New York from 1967-1980, performing in light opera and off-Broadway productions, and as a chorister and soloist in classical choral concerts. She received a Masters of Humanities (Japanese Studies) and a Ph.D. in dance history. Her dissertation, “The Life and Art of Uday Shankar,” was published in the fall 2007 edition of "Dance Chronicle. " She taught graduate and undergraduate dance history at New York University from 1982-1996, and was the first President of World Dance Alliance Americas, an international advocacy group for dance (Western Hemisphere branch).

Descended from a long line of Sephardi Rabbis and librarians, Randy Belinfante has long been interested in Judaism and libraries. A perpetual student, he has been in Graduate School for as long as he can remember. Except for a short stint at a Yeshiva in the midst of his studies, he has mainly concentrated on academic studies of Jewish topics. He earned one Master's Degree in Middle East Studies with emphases on Archaeology and Hebrew and a second one in Ancient Judaism with an emphasis on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He recently completed work on a fourth thesis (for a fourth Master's Degree) dealing with the poetry of an eighteenth century Rabbi/Librarian named Isaac Cohen Belinfante (an ancestor).

Andrée Aelion Brooks, author of the first comprehensive biography of Doña Gracia Nasi, woman Renaissance banker, coordinated and edited "Out of Spain", a multi-media educational program in Sephardic history and culture designed for 5th-7th graders in Jewish schools. Among her numerous awards and honors are American Jewish Woman of Achievement Award from the American Jewish Committee, the Mark Twain Award from the Connecticut Press, and finalist in the National Federation of Press Women. Her newest book, "Russian Dance", a romantic thriller based on a true story of a Bolshevik spy, continues her work in Jewish history. She is popular on the lecture circuit for her storytelling, humor and insights.

Dr. Jessica V. Roitman has written numerous articles and conference papers on the Sephardim in transatlantic commerce. She took her M.A. in Latin American Literature and History at Vanderbilt University and in 2009 completed her Ph.D. from the History Institute of Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston Library, Dale Rosengarten developed the landmark exhibition, “A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life,” which opened at McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina in 2002 and traveled to Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History for the first half of 2003. She and her husband, Theodore Rosengarten, co-edited the accompanying volume. Dale also co-edited “The Diary of Joseph Lyons, 1833–1835,” published in American Jewish History, as well as a special issue of the journal drawn from the 2006 Biennial Scholars Conference, which was hosted by the College of Charleston. Her essay, “Jewish Antiques Roadshow: Religion and Domestic Culture in the American South,” appeared in the anthology, "ewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History " (2006).

Dr. Holly Snyder is North American History Librarian at Brown University’s John Hay Library, where her responsibilities include modern Judaic Studies. She is the author of numerous articles on Jews in the early modern British Atlantic, including a recent essay on Jewish merchants published in Atlantic Trajectories: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800 (Hopkins, 2009). She is currently at work on a book-length manuscript entitled "Geographical Destinies: Jews, Identity and Social Place in the British Atlantic World, 1654 – 1831." Prior to joining the staff of the Brown University Library, she taught American history and Judaic Studies at Boston University, Hampshire College and Smith College, and worked as an archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Jewish Historical Society and the John Nicholas Brown Center. She holds a Ph.D. in American History from Brandeis University, and received her M.S.L.S. and an M.A. in American History from The Catholic University of America.

Dr. Barry Stiefel received his Ph.D. in Historic Preservation from Tulane University in 2008. His dissertation was entitled, "The History and Preservation of the Synagogues of the Atlantic World, 1636-1822." Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at College of Charleston, where he teaches and is working on a manuscript entitled, "Jewish Sanctuary in the Atlantic World: A Social and Architectural History," to be published by University of South Carolina Press. This manuscript was the recipient of the 2009 Hines Prize.

Hilit Surowitz is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida, where she is currently finishing her dissertation ‘La Nação’: Reconstructing Jewish Identity in the Early Modern Atlantic World." Her article The Symbolic Power of Blood-Letting: Picart’s La Circoncision des Juifs Portugais, has recently appeared in Jewish Blood: Reality and Metaphor in History, Religion, and Culture. Her research interests include religion in the Americas, the Jewish communities of the Atlantic World, and diaspora studies.

Ainsley Henriques, historian and genealogist, is a leader of the Jewish Community in Jamaica, West Indies, where his family settled 1740. Henriques serves as President and Director of United Congregation of Israelites, and since 2006 as editor and publisher of the quarterly Newsletter of the UCI. He has served as president of Sha´are Shalom Synagogue in Kingston, Jamaica Lodge B’nai Br’ith, and of United Congregation of Israelites. As Chairman of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, he led the planning Committee to host the 5th annual Convention of the Union of Latin American and Caribbean Congregations (UJCL) in 2003, and in 2006, led the development and opening of the Jewish Heritage Center to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Jews of Jamaica 2006. Also in 2006, he represented Jamaica at the UJCL Convention. In 1997, he initiated the Archaeological Dig on the Neveh Shalom Synagogue site (1704) in Spanish Town. He also initiated and managed the clean up and maintenance of the historic Hunt’s Bay Cemetery (17th & 18th century) and has since coordinated the Caribbean Volunteers Expedition’s (CVE) work on cataloging Jamaica’s Jewish Cemeteries, an on-going project. In 1959-60, he represented the Board of Deputies at the University 1959/60, and in 1961, assisted HIAS with the airlift of Cuban Jews to Jamaica. He is a member of the Interfaith Council of Jamaica, and has been actively involved with B’nai Br’ith and the Union of Latin American and Caribbean Congregations

New York writer Ed Kritzler, a recognized authority on Jamaica, has authored hundreds of articles on the island and in his 10-year tenure with the Jamaica Tourist Board, he was in charge of arranging and touring members of the foreign press and broadcast media. Serving as Jamaica’s film liaison officer, he was responsible for over a dozen feature films and network documentaries.

Dr. Kenneth Libo is co-author of “World of Our Fathers”, for which he shared a National Book Award with Irving Howe. He is also the author of “The Obermayers,” a history of a Jewish family in Germany and America — 1618-1909; “Lots of Lehman,” an anecdotal history of the Lehmans of Lehman Brothers; “We Lived There Too," a history of Jews in the American West; “All in a Lifetime,” an oral memoir of John and Frances Lehman Loeb; and “How We Lived,” a documentary history of the Lower East Side. Articles by Dr. Libo have appeared in the “New York Times”, “American Jewish History,” “Judaism,” and “Midstream.” Formerly English editor of the "Jewish Forward," he has curated exhibitions at the Jewish Museum in New York and Beth Hatefutsoh in Tel Aviv. Dr. Libo is a graduate of Dartmouth College, holds a doctorate in English literature from the City University of New York, and teaches American Jewish history at Hunter College.

The Gomez Mill House was founded in 1714 by the Colonial American Jewish merchant and pioneer, Luis Moses Gomez. This conference was the first of three to explore the theme of Jewish merchants in the New World from the first recorded reference of Jewish presence in the Americas in 1500, to the present. The conference series was inspired by the life and work of Luis Moses Gomez and the upcoming 300th anniversary of the Gomez Mill House, built as a trading post on the 6,500 acre Gomez enterprise in the Hudson Valley.

There is much scholarship on the families and lives of the early American Jewish communities, especially on the great families who lived and contributed to the development of infant America, including such familiar names as Cardozo, Seixas, Lopez, Hendricks, Lehman, Levy, and Nathan, to name but a few. With Gomez family, they and their descendents contributed significantly to the commerce, politics, and fabric of society. From the establishment of trade routes among America, Europe, the Caribbean and South America, to the founding of the New York Stock Exchange, to funding the American Revolution, the great merchant families of early America made their mark and left a legacy that continues to today.

It is hoped that this conference on the period 1500-1800, and the subsequent conferences in 2010 and 2011 exploring the nineteenth century and then the twentieth century to the present will encourage further dialogue on the themes explored and enthusiastic support and participation in the 300th anniversary of the Gomez Mill House.

Ruth K. Abrahams
Executive Director
Gomez Foundation for Mill House

The Gomez Foundation for Mill House wishes to thank the conference participants, the Trustees and Council of the Gomez Foundation for Mill House, and the following for helping to make this conference possible: Evan Kingsley and Susan Malbin of the American Jewish Historical Society; Stanley Urman and the staff of the American Sephardi Federation, Michael Glickman, Michael Stafford, Melissa Minaya, Giovanni Massa, Julie Kaplan and the staff of Center for Jewish History, Jonathan Brent and the staff of YIVO, Shelomo Alfassa, George Dorris, Sachiyo Ito, CJH volunteers (Blanche Hutcherson, Mona Prokopin, Benita Watterworth, Bonnie Rosenstock, and Sylvia Bashkow, and Desery Contreras Gomez Foundation office assistant and conference assistant coordinator.

Design and Printing:
Lehmann Printing
Catering: Village Crown