History of the Jews in the United States
The history of the Jews in the United States goes back to the 1600s and 1700s. There have been Jewish communities in the United States since colonial times, with individuals living in various cities before the American Revolution. Early Jewish communities were primarily composed of Sephardi immigrants from Brazil, Amsterdam, or England, many of them fleeing the Inquisition. Private and civically unrecognized local, regional, and sometimes international networks were noted in these groups in order to facilitate marriage and business ties. This small and private colonial community largely existed as undeclared and non-practicing Jews, a great number deciding to intermarry with non-Jews. Later on, the vastly more numerous Ashkenazi Jews that came to populate New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere in what became the United States of America altered these demographics. Until the 1830s, the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina, was the largest in North America. Wikipedia