Although both my father, Michael Gratz, and my mother’s father, Joseph Simon, were Ashkenazi Jews born in Germany, our family was unusual. Until after the Revolutionary War, most early American Jews were Sephardim, Spanish-Portuguese Jews whose families had either came directly from Iberia or who had fled first to The Netherlands, England, or Germany to escape the Inquisition. Below is a list of where most Jews came from in early America, or you can use the map view.
- Iberia
- Amsterdam
- London
- Eretz Yisrael
- Western Africa