Shomrim History

The first Jewish police officer in North America was Asser Levy.  He was a
Portuguese Jew who lived in Recife, then the capital of Dutch Brazil.  Many
Portuguese Jews fled the Inquisition of Spain and Portugal by moving to the
then Portuguese colony of Brazil.  Others fled to Protestant Holland where
Jews were allowed to openly practice their faith.  When the Dutch conquered
several areas of Brazil in 1620, they were warmly welcomed by the Jews who
had been forced to live as Conversos by the Catholic Church.  Thirty-four
years later, when the Portuguese re-conquered Brazil, and re-introduced the
Inquisition, the Jews were severely persecuted and large numbers were killed
for the assistance they rendered to Holland during the wars.  The Jewish
community of Recife, five thousand strong, fell apart and scattered.  Some
returned to Holland, others lived as best they could as Conversos and many
abandoned all and fled to nearby Caribbean islands.  A small number took a
ship to the Dutch colony in North America, New Amsterdam.  Twenty-three of
them arrived there, penniless, in September of 1654.  One was Asser Levy.

He and his co-religionists were denied Dutch citizenship in the colony.
Levy was also denied the privilege to serve in the Burgher Guard, a
volunteer type of community militia (and was therefore taxed to pay for his
protection).  Jews had been living in Holland since 1492 and had prospered.
Despite some restrictions, the Jews received far more liberal treatment from
the Dutch than that found in other European countries.  By 1654 many Dutch
Jews, originally from Portugal, were investors in the Dutch West India
Company (sponsors of the investment colony of New Amsterdam) and influential
members of the community of Amsterdam.  Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the
colony, met their resistance when he tried to deny admittance to the
twenty-three Portuguese Jews fleeing from Recife, among them Asser Levy.  In
Stuyvesant's letter to the Company he prayed that the deceitful race, such
hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, be not allowed to
further infect and trouble this new colony.  The Dutch West India Company
overruled their governor and allowed the Jews to remain provided the poor
among them shall not become a burden to the Company or to the community, but
be supported by their own nation.

Once Levy and the others were allowed to remain, Levy fought all
restrictions placed upon him.  In 1655 he petitioned the town council to
join the Burgher Guard and be permitted to keep guard with the other
burghers.  His petition was denied and Levy was told he was free to depart
whenever and wither it pleases him.  But Levy also appealed this ruling to
the Company's directors in Amsterdam, who again sided with the wishes of
Holland's powerful Jewish community who supported the Jewish colonists.
Thus Asser Levy, became the first Jewish watchman in New Amsterdam, winning
the privilege of manning the stockades along Wall Street against Indian
attacks.  (In later years, the only attacks on Wall Street his descendants
would fear, were from bulls, bears and the SEC!)  Finally in 1657, Asser
Levy petitioned for another right.  According to the official court record:

 Asser Levy, a Jew, appears in Court; requests to be admitted a Burgher
(citizen); claims that such ought not be refused him as he keeps watch and
ward like Burghers and showing Burgher certificates from the city of
Amsterdam that Jews are Burghers there.

On April 21, 1657, New Amsterdam's first Jewish watchman (and our first
Shomer) became its first Jewish citizen.  Twenty years later Citizen Levy
was given a license to operate a kosher butcher shop.  Before his death in
1681, in what was then New York, Asser Levy, who began his new life as a
laborer and part time Shomer, became a tavern keeper, a real estate
investor, trader and civic leader.  It wasn't until 1728 that the British
permitted the first synagogue to be built in New York.  Prior thereto, the
houses of public worship allowed were for those that profess the faith of
Christ.  That first synogogue was built on South William Street (later known
as Jews' Alley) and for the first time the Jews of New York could publicly
worship their faith.

Our brother and sisters in New York Shomrim, who founded the first Shomrim Society for police officers in 1924, have named their annual Person of the Year
award in honor of Asser Levy, a Jew who fought for the right to protect his
community.