April 8 1730 – 21 Nisan 5490
Mill Street Synagogue, the first structure designed and built as a synagogue in North America, was consecrated in Manhatten. The Spanish and Portuguese Shearith Israel community had been founded in 1654, moving between rented premises until finally finding a permanent home. The community included a minority of Ashkenazic members from its inception, but it was agreed that while the congregation’s president could be an Ashkenazi, the cantor and rite of services would remain traditional Spanish and Portuguese. One of the community’s most famous leaders was Gershom Menes Seixas, who supported the American Revolution and had to leave when the British took the city. He was the first to institute a regular Thanks-giving Day sermon. A 1744 visitor to the synagogue noted that congregation’s women “of whom some were very pretty, stood up in the gallery [as in] a hen coop.”