A vivid glimpse into Jewish life in Virginia during the last decades of the 18th century is given by the two letters we present below. Originally written in Yiddish, they are from Rebecca Samuel, who was then living with her husband and two children in the town of Petersburg, Virginia, to her parents, Alexander by name, in Hamburg, Germany. The Samuels had evidently spent some time in England.

These two letters (the first of which is incomplete and the second undated—but we know that the family was still in Petersburg in 1792) are included in a volume which will be out this month, entitled American Jewry. Documents, Eighteenth Century. The collection is edited by Jacob R. Marcus, director of the American Jewish Archives, and published by the Hebrew Union College Press.—Ed.

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Petersburg, January 12, 1791
Wednesday, 8th [7th?] Shebat, 5551

Dear and Worthy Parents:

I received your precious letter with much pleasure and understand therefrom that you are in good health, thank God, and that made us especially happy. The same is not lacking with us—may we live to be a hundred years. Amen.

Dear parents, you complain that you do not receive any letters from us, and my mother-in-law writes the same. I don’t know what’s happening. I have written more letters than I have received from you. Whenever I can and have an opportunity, I give letters to take along and I send letters by post when I do not have any other opportunity. It is already six months since we received letters from you and from London. The last letter you sent was through Sender [Alexander], and it was the beginning of the month of Ab [July 1790] when we received it. Now you can realize that we too have been somewhat worried. We are completely isolated here. We do not have any friends, and when we do not hear from you for any length of time, it is enough to make us sick. I hope that I will get to see some of my family. That will give me some satisfaction.

You write me that Mr. Jacob Renner’s son Reuben is in Philadelphia and that he will come to us. People will not advise him to come to Virginia. When the Jews of Philadelphia or New York hear the name Virginia, they shudder. And they are not wrong! It won’t do for a Jew. In the first place it is an unhealthful district, and we are only human. God forbid, if anything should happen to us, where would they throw us? There is no cemetery in the whole of Virginia. In Richmond, which is twenty-two miles from here, there is a Jewish community the size of two minyans and the two together cannot muster a [minyan when needed?].

You cannot imagine what kind of Jews they have here [in Virginia]. They were all German itinerants who made a living by begging in Germany. They came to America during the war, as soldiers, and now they wouldn’t recognize themselves.

One can make a good living here, and all live in peace. Anyone can do what he wants. There is no rabbi in all of America to excommunicate anyone. This is a blessing here: Jew and Gentile are as one. There is no galut here. In New York and Philadelphia there is more galut. The reason is that there are many German Gentiles and Jews there. The German Gentiles cannot forsake their anti-Jewish prejudice; and the German Jews cannot forsake their disgraceful conduct; and that’s what makes galut.

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Dear Parents:

I hope my letter will ease your mind. You can now be reassured and send one of the family to me at Charleston, South Carolina. This is the place to which, with God’s help, we will go after Passover. The whole reason why we are leaving this place is because of Yehudishkeit.

Dear parents, I know quite well you will not want me to bring up my children as Gentiles. Here they cannot become anything else. Jewishness is pushed aside here. There are here [in Petersburg] ten or twelve Jews, and they are not worthy to be called Jews. We have a shohet here who goes to market and buys terefah [non-Kosher] meat and then brings it home. On Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur the people worshipped here without one sefer torah and not one of them wore the tallit. . . except Hayyim and my Sammy’s godfather. The latter is an old man of sixty, a man from Holland. He has been in America for thirty years already; for twenty years he was in Charleston, and he has been living here for four years. He does not want to remain here any longer and will go with us to Charleston . . . there is a blessed community of three hundred Jews.

You can believe me that I crave to see a synagogue to which I can go. The way we live is no life at all. We do not know what the Sabbath and the holidays are. On the Sabbath all the Jewish shops are open; and they do business on that day as they do throughout the whole week. But ours we do not allow to open. With us there is still some Sabbath. You must believe me that in our house we all live as Jews as much as we can.

As for the [Gentiles?], we have nothing to complain about. For the sake of a livelihood we do not have to leave here. Nor do we have to leave because of debts. . . . You cannot know what a wonderful country this is for the common man. One can live here in peace. Hayyim has made a clock that goes very accurately, just like the one in the Buchenstrasse in Hamburg. Now you can imagine what honors Hayyim has been getting here. In all Virginia there is no such clock, and Virginia is the greatest province in the whole of America, and America is the largest place in the world. Now you know what sort of a country this is. It is not too long since Virginia was discovered. It is a young country. And it is amazing to see the business they do in this little Petersburg. At times as many as a thousand hogsheads of tobacco arrive at one time, and each hogshead contains 1,000 and sometimes 1,200 pounds of tobacco. The tobacco is shipped from here to the whole world.

When Judah [brother?] comes here, he can become a watchmaker and a goldsmith, if he so desires. Here it is not like Germany where a watchmaker is not permitted to sell silverware. They do not know otherwise here. They expect a watchmaker to be a silversmith here. Hayyim has more to do in making silverware than with watchmaking. He has a journeyman, a silversmith, a very good artisan, and he, Hayyim, takes care of the watches. This work is well paid here, but in Charleston it pays even better.

All the people who hear that we are leaving give us their blessings. They say that it is sinful that such blessed children should be brought up here in Petersburg. My children cannot learn anything here, nothing Jewish, nothing of general culture. My Schoene, God bless her, is already three years old. I think it is time that she should learn something, and she has a good head to learn. I have taught her the bedtime prayers and grace after meals in just two lessons. I believe that no one among the Jews here can do as well as she. And my Sammy, God bless him, is already beginning to talk.

I could write more. However, I do not have any more paper.

I remain your devoted daughter and servant, Rebecca, the wife of Hayyim, the son of Samuel the Levite. I send my family, my . . . [mother-in-law?] and all my friends and good friends, my regards.

To Mr. Aaron Alexander,
On the New . . .
Hamburg

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