“In 1768 the position of hazzan became vacant at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City, and Gershom Mendes Seixas, at the remarkably young age of 23, was unanimously elected to the post. Seixas was born in New York in 1745 or 1746 (the records are unclear), the son of Isaac Seixas. Legend has it that his grandfather was a Portuguese Marrano, Miguel Pacheco da Silva, who, upon realizing that the office of the Inquisition had discovered his criminal heterodoxy, prevailed upon one of his loyal servants to help smuggle him out of Inquisitorial reach. After escaping from his home in 1725, he fled to London, where he found a fairly large Jewish community. In London he reverted to his pre-Marrano name of Abraham Mendes Seixas and was elected to membership in the Mahamat, or ruling board of the Sephardic community.”[i]
“Abraham’s second son, Isaac Mendes Seixas, was born in Lisbon in 1709, but at an early age he escaped from his Marrano life in Portugal and by way of Barbados came to New York in 1730 (or 1738).”[ii]
The Jewish community at this time consisted of a mere 250 to 300 people and was dominated by Jews of Spanish/Portuguese origin that proudly referred to themselves as members of La Nacion. A few Ashkenazic Jews were also part of the Jewish community at this time.
In 1741 Isaac married London-born Rachel Levy (1719-1797), the eldest daughter of Moses Levy. The Levys were a prominent New York Ashkenazic family. This caused an uproar among New York’s Sephardic elite, who looked down upon Ashkenazim as their social inferiors. Isaac’s uncle Rodrigo Pachero made it clear that he was “displeased” with his nephew’s marriage into an Ashkenazic family. Since he was not the only member of the New York Spanish/Portuguese Jewish community to feel this way, Isaac did not invite any of them to his wedding.
“Seven children besides Gershom were born to this marriage. The first child, Abraham (born 1741), and the last, Raphael, died in infancy. The others, who lived out their normal span of life, left a notable impress on the pages of American Jewish history. Gershom was the fourth of the children. His younger brother Benjamin and his younger sister Grace (Grace Nathan) were active and picturesque personalities. His older brother, Moses (1744-1809), was one of the organizers of the Bank of Rhode Island in Newport and was first Grand Master of Masons in Rhode Island. It was this Moses Seixas who as president of the Newport Jewish community in 1790 addressed to George Washington an historic letter of welcome to that town.
“Gershom’s younger brother, Abraham (1750-1799), who married Richea Hart of Charleston, served throughout the Revolution, first as Lieutenant in the Georgia Continental Line and then as Captain in the South Carolina Militia. His older sister, Abigail (1742-1819), at the age of seventeen became the wife of Hillel Judah at New Aberdeen.
“History does not tell of the games or growing pains of these boys and girls constituting the family of Isaac Mendes Seixas in their New York home before their merchant father moved to Newport, R.I., where he died during the Revolution at the age of 71 on November 3, 1780. Nor does history inform us how Gershom received his training to become the religious leader of the New York Jewish community. There was no rabbinic seminary, nor even a rabbi in the United States at the time. It must have been his own spirit, his constant attendance at synagogue services, the Jewish life in his home, and what he learned from New York’s Hazan Joseph Jessurun Pinto, that qualified him by the summer of 1768, when he was twenty-three years old, to present himself as a candidate for the position of hazan of the community.”[iii]