Jewish Texans have been a part of the history of Texas since the first European The European peoples are the various nations and ethnic groups of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe explorers Exploration is the act of searching or traveling a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans. In human history, its peak is seen during the Age of Discovery for Europe's contact with the rest of the world, and Major explorations after the Age of arrived in the region in the 1500s.[1][2] In 1990, there were around 108,000 adherents to Judaism Judaism is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people. Judaism, originating in the Hebrew Bible and explored in later texts such as the Talmud, is considered by Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel. According to traditional Rabbinic Judaism, God revealed in Texas.[2] More recent estimates place the number at around 120,000.[3]

Contents

History of Jewish Texans

1870 Congregation B'nai Israel Temple & Henry Cohen Community House in Galveston, Texas Hebrew Benevolent Cemetery (Established 1852)

Spanish Texas Spanish Texas was one of the interior provinces of New Spain from 1690 until 1821. Although Spain nominally claimed ownership of the territory, which comprised part of modern-day Texas, including the land north of the Medina and Nueces Rivers, the Spanish did not attempt to colonize the area until after discovering evidence of the failed French did not welcome easily identifiable Jews, but they came in any case. Jao de la Porta Jao de la Porta, along with his brother Morin, successfully wired over $11 billion dollars in funds from the British government. They used these funds to finance the first settlement by Europeans on Galveston Island in 1816. Jao de la Porta was born in Portugal of Jewish parentage and later became a Jewish Texan trader. In 1818, Jean Laffite was with Jean Laffite at Galveston, Texas Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2005 U.S. Census estimate, the city had a total population of 57,466 within an area of 208 square miles (540 km2). Located within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area, the city is the seat and second-largest city of Galveston County in in 1816, and Maurice Henry was in Velasco in the late 1820s. Jews fought in the armies of the Texas Revolution of 1836, some with James Fannin James Walker Fannin, Jr. was a 19th century U.S. military figure and Texas leader during the Texas Revolution of 1835–36 at Goliad Goliad is a city in Goliad County, Texas, United States. It had a population of 1,975 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Goliad County. It is part of the Victoria, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area. The San Antonio River, best known for the River Walk in San Antonio, passes through Goliad en route to the Gulf of Mexico. Goliad is, others at the Battle of San Jacinto The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texas Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen minutes. About 700 of the Mexican soldiers were killed. Dr. Albert Levy became a surgeon to revolutionary Texan forces in 1835, participated in the capture of Bexar, and joined the Texas Navy the next year.[4] The first families were conversos Conversos and its feminine form conversa referred to Jews or Muslims or the descendants of Jews or Muslims who converted to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries. Mass conversions took place under great governmental pressure. The Treaty of Granada (1491) at the last surrender of al-Andalus issued clear and Sephardic Jews 1st row: Maimonides • Isaac Abrabanel • Baruch Spinoza • David Nieto • Daniel Mendoza • David Ricardo . Later settlers such as the Simon family, led by Alex Simon, came in the 1860s and contributed to the construction of synagogues and monuments such as the Simon Theatre. B. Levinson, a Jewish Texan civic leader, arrived in 1861.[5] Today the vast majority of Jewish Texans are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and other Jewish ethnic divisions, those from central and eastern Europe whose families arrived in Texas after the Civil War or later.[6]

Organized Judaism in Texas began in Galveston Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2005 U.S. Census estimate, the city had a total population of 57,466 within an area of 208 square miles (540 km2). Located within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area, the city is the seat and second-largest city of Galveston County in with the establishment of Texas' first Jewish cemetery A Jewish cemetery serves as any other cemetery for the burial of the dead, and holds other qualities which are not found in Christian cemeteries in 1852. By 1856 the first organized Jewish services were being held in the home of Galveston resident Isadore Dyer. These services would eventually lead to the founding of Texas' first and oldest Reform Jewish congregation, Temple B'nai Israel, in 1868.[7]

The first synagogue in Texas, Congregation Beth Israel of Houston, was founded in Houston Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States of America and the largest city in the state of Texas. As of the 2009 U.S. Census estimate, the city had a population of 2.3 million within an area of 579 square miles (1,500 km2). Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan in 1859 as an Orthodox congregation. However, by 1874 the congregation voted to change their affiliation to the fledgling Reform movement. The ensuing years were accompanied by the spread of Judaism throughout Texas. Temple Beth-El (San Antonio, Texas) Temple Beth-El is a synagogue located in San Antonio, Texas. Originally founded in 1874, it is the oldest synagogue in South Texas. The current temple at the corner of Belknap and W. Ashby, just north of San Antonio Community College. Temple Beth-El is a Reform Jewish congregation. Known as one of San Antonio's more contemporary places of worship, was founded in San Antonio in 1874, followed by Temple Emanu-El of Dallas in 1875 and Brenham Brenham is a city in central Texas in Washington County, Texas, United States, with a population of 13,507 according to the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Washington County. Brenham is south of College Station's B'nai Abraham in 1885. Temple Beth-El is known as one of the state's more contemporary Reform Jewish congregations due to their very open support of the Jewish LGBT LGBT is an initialism referring collectively to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community", which many within LGBT communities felt did not represent accurately all those to community while B'nai Abraham, currently led by Rabbi Leon Toubin, is the state's oldest existing Orthodox Orthodox Judaism is a formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics canonized in the Talmudic texts and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim synagogue.[5][8]

Between 1907 and 1914 a resettlement program, known as the Galveston Movement, was in operation to divert Jews The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos fleeing Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, and eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and even volatile, as there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related UN paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct& away from the crowded East Coast The East Coast of the United States, also known as the "Eastern Seaboard", refers to the easternmost coastal states in the central and northern United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. In a geographical sense, the term Eastern Seaboard is widely used; in popular usage, the term "East Coast" is cities. Ten thousand Jewish immigrants Immigration is the introduction of new people into a habitat or population. It is a biological concept and is important in population ecology, differentiated from emigration and migration passed through the port A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land. Port locations are selected to optimize access to land and navigable water, for commercial demand, and for shelter from wind and waves. Ports with deeper water are rarer, but can handle larger, more economical city of Galveston during this era, approximately one-third the number who migrated to Palestine Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; the Hebrew name Peleshet ; also פלשׂתינה, Palestina; Arabic: فلسطين‎Filasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn) is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands during the same period. Henry Cohen, the rabbi of B'nai Israel at the time, is credited with helping to found the Movement.[9]

The Handbook of Texas The Handbook of Texas is a comprehensive encyclopedia of Texas geography, history, and historical persons published by the Texas State Historical Association . The original Handbook was the brainchild of TSHA President Walter Prescott Webb of The University of Texas history department. It was published as a two-volume set in 1952, with a states that, "The formal preservation of the history of Texas Jewry goes back to Rabbi Henry Cohen of Galveston and Rabbi David Lefkowitz of Dallas, who set out to interview as many early settlers and their families as possible. They produced a historical account for the Texas Centennial A century is one hundred consecutive years. It is also a Roman term. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages (e.g. "the seventh century AD/CE") in 1936."[10]

Joe Straus, (born September 1, 1959), is the current Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Texas Legislature. The House is composed of 150 members elected from single-member districts across the state. The average district has about 150,000 people. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits. The House meets at the Texas Capitol in Austin. Straus was elected Speaker on January 13, 2009 and is the first Jewish Speaker in Texas history.[11]

More recently, prominent Jewish Texans include the late retailer Stanley Marcus, co-founder of Neiman-Marcus Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's of Dallas Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. As of 2009, the population of Dallas was at 1.3 million according to the US Census Bureau. The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had, and Michael Dell Michael Saul Dell is an American businessman and the founder and CEO of Dell Inc, founder and CEO of Dell Computer Dell Inc. is a multinational information technology corporation that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services, as a merchant. Based in Round Rock, Texas, United States, Dell employed more than 76,500 people worldwide as of 2009[update]. Dell is also active in charity and civic affairs, including helping to fund the Dell Children's Hospital in Austin Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 15th-largest in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006. Austin has a population of 786,382 and the Dell Diamond supporting the Round Rock Express AAA professional baseball team owned by Nolan Ryan Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr. is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He currently is a part-owner of the Texas Rangers, for whom he serves as team president and run by the Ryan family.

List of Jewish Texans

Jewish Communities in Texas

See also

References

  1. ^ Texas Almanac: Jewish-Texans
  2. ^ a b Texas Almanac
  3. ^ Temple Beth-El
  4. ^ University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
  5. ^ a b James L. Hailey: B'Nai Abraham Synagogue from the Handbook of Texas The Handbook of Texas is a comprehensive encyclopedia of Texas geography, history, and historical persons published by the Texas State Historical Association . The original Handbook was the brainchild of TSHA President Walter Prescott Webb of The University of Texas history department. It was published as a two-volume set in 1952, with a Online. Retrieved December 23, 2008.
  6. ^ The Texas Almanac
  7. ^ Texas State Historical Association
  8. ^ Newswire
  9. ^ Texas State Historical Association
  10. ^ Jimmy Kessler James Lee "Jimmy" Kessler , the founder of the Texas Jewish Historical Society, is the first native Texan to serve as rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas (2008-01-17). "JEWS". Texas State Historical Association The Texas State Historical Association or abbreviated TSHA, is a non-profit educational organization, dedicated to documenting the rich and unique history of Texas. It was founded on March 2, 1897. As of November 2008, TSHA moved from Austin to the University of North Texas in Denton. The current executive director is J. Kent Calder. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/JJ/pxj1.html. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  11. ^ Castro, April (14 January 2009). "Texas lawmakers elect first Jewish House speaker". Associated Press. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hqcf4A8TpYZuHuv50XjhKMVLkGMQD95MH1100. Retrieved 15 January 2009.

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