As AAQ pointed out, Jewish New York goes back to the mid-17th century. The first Jews sailed in from Brazil about a decade before Shearith Israel was formally founded. BTW, New York was a major trade and financial hub (and the first capital of the new United States) long before the Erie Canal (which, together with the railroads, made Chicago into a major transportation hub). This is the story of Galus ויחנו ויסעו. Parts of Europe were home to huge Jewish communities for close to a millennium. Bavel/Iraq was the preeminent Jewish community for almost 1500 years straight (from יכניה מלך יהודה until רב האי גאון), and remained a major center of Jewish life for another millennium until the 1950s. Almost nothing remains on location from either of those, although the Talmud Bavli, Rashi, Tosfos, Rishonim and Achronim etc. live on with us forever. Remember that in Germany in the 1920’s Jews had more rights and opportunities than anywhere else in Europe. There were some pesky political extremists with antisemitic views, but who took them seriously?
