The story of Jewish migration to America — six waves of movement, persecution, resilience, and community across four centuries.
In September 1654, twenty-three Jewish refugees arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam — the first documented Jewish community on American soil. They were Sephardic Jews, expelled from Spain and Portugal decades earlier, who had found temporary refuge in Dutch Brazil before the Portuguese conquest forced them north again.
In the nearly four centuries since, Jewish Americans have transformed the United States — and the United States has transformed them. This atlas traces six distinct waves of migration, each driven by different forces: religious persecution, economic law, violent pogroms, genocide, postwar prosperity, and the pull of a warmer climate.
Each era left a different imprint on American Jewish life — in language, in labor, in community, in culture.
This project draws on primary source data from the Library of Congress, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Jewish Women's Archive, PBS Jewish Americans, UJA-Federation of New York, and peer-reviewed scholarship on American Jewish demographics. Population figures represent scholarly estimates where precise census data is unavailable.
1654 – Present
Twenty-three refugees from Recife, Brazil found shelter in New Amsterdam under Dutch religious tolerance. They were merchants who founded America's first Jewish community and spread along the Eastern Seaboard.
Matrikel laws targeting Jewish households in German states drove hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews to America. The Jewish population grew from 15,000 to 300,000 in four decades.
Pogroms, the May Laws, military conscription of 25 years, and economic devastation drove one third of Eastern European Jewry to America. New York's Lower East Side became the heart of Jewish immigrant life.
The 1924 Immigration Act — built on pseudoscientific race theory — shut the door. When the Holocaust began in 1933, the United States admitted only ~165,000 of the refugees who needed rescue.
The GI Bill, FHA mortgages, and new highways enabled Jewish families to leave immigrant neighborhoods for the suburbs. By 1970, 50% of urban Jewish Americans had relocated to suburban communities.
Warmer climate, job growth, and lower costs drew Jewish communities to Florida, California, Texas, and Arizona. Today the three largest US Jewish populations are in New York, California, and Florida.
Navigate each era, hover cities for population data, and watch migration patterns unfold across American history.
Primary sources, academic scholarship, and archival material consulted for this project.