Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
City

New York

Also Known As New York City The full name of the city, as distinct from the state. · New Yorker
United States

New York has been the entry point for most of the religious traditions that reached the United States by sea, and it holds the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel, shaped by successive Sephardic, German and Eastern European migrations and by the Hasidic communities of Brooklyn. Harlem's churches produced much of American gospel music, and the Nation of Islam's Temple Number Seven there was Malcolm X's base. The first Hare Krishna temple in the West opened on Second Avenue in 1966, and after the 1965 immigration act the city gained Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Muslim communities on a scale it had not held before.

Facts
Attributions
Tradition
Dutch Reformed Christianity first, with the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657 an early colonial argument for toleration; then Anglican and Catholic churches, the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and congregations of nearly every tradition the twentieth century brought to the city 2
Traditions
Sacred and Liturgical Languages
Dutch, then English, with Hebrew and Yiddish, Latin, Greek, Church Slavonic, Arabic and many others in its congregations 3
Origins
Founded
Founded as New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company in 1625 and taken by the English in 1664 1
Learn More
The Port of Entry

In 1654 a ship carrying twenty three Jewish refugees from the fall of Dutch Brazil reached New Amsterdam. The governor asked permission to expel them; the Dutch West India Company, some of whose shareholders were Jewish, refused, and told him to let them stay provided they cared for their own poor. The congregation founded then, Shearith Israel, still exists, which makes the oldest Jewish community in North America older than the English colony that replaced the Dutch one.

Everything else arrived the same way. German Jews came in the middle of the nineteenth century and built the Reform congregations of upper Manhattan; eastern European Jews arrived in millions after 1881 and filled the Lower East Side with synagogues, study houses, Yiddish theatres and newspapers. After 1945 Hasidic survivors rebuilt courts that had been destroyed in Europe, transplanting them whole: Satmar in Williamsburg, and Chabad in Crown Heights, whose emissaries now operate in more than a hundred countries and within which the question of whether the last rebbe was the messiah caused a serious rupture after his death in 1994.

The city holds the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel. It was also the first Anglican foothold in the colony, with Trinity Church chartered in 1697, and it became the great Irish and Italian Catholic city of the country, with a cathedral on Fifth Avenue built for a population that had arrived poor.

Harlem, and What Arrived After 1965

The Great Migration moved southern black churches north, and Harlem became their capital. Abyssinian Baptist grew into one of the largest Protestant congregations in the country and sent its minister to Congress; storefront churches filled the side streets; and the gospel music that developed in these buildings reshaped American religious singing. Father Divine's Peace Mission ran banquets and businesses on a theology that identified its leader with God and an insistence on integrated membership that was extraordinary for the 1930s.

The Nation of Islam's Temple Number Seven in Harlem became the base of Malcolm X, its minister from the mid 1950s and the reason the movement grew from hundreds to tens of thousands. He broke with it in 1964, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, wrote that seeing Muslims of every colour worshipping together had changed his view of race, and was murdered in February 1965 at a meeting hall in Washington Heights.

That same year Congress removed the national origins quotas, and the religious map of the city was redrawn within a generation. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrived in 1965, chanted in a park on the Lower East Side and opened the first Hare Krishna temple in the West in a storefront on Second Avenue. Hindu temples were built in Queens from the 1970s, Chinese Buddhist temples in Chinatown and Flushing, and mosques serving South Asian, Arab, West African and African American congregations across all five boroughs.

Connections

Associated With

This source names New York directly: "signed confession, published in the New York World on 21 October 1888, is a primary document: her own public statement, delivered on stage, that the Fox sisters' rappings had been produced by..."

Source Signed Confession of Margaret Fox KaneMargaret Fox

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 1995 in the McGill Studies in the History of Religions series, is a scholarly critical translation and study of an anthology of ginans..."

Source Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance: Hymns of the Satpanth Ismaili Muslim Saint, Pir ShamsTazim R. Kassam

This source names New York directly: "Charles Inglis, a Loyalist whose New York church had been burned during the American Revolution, was consecrated at Lambeth Palace on 12 August 1787 as the first Anglican bishop of Nova Scotia and..."

Source A History of Global AnglicanismKevin Ward

This source names New York directly: "Baha'i teacher, had begun classes in New York before moving to Chicago in 1894, where the religious enthusiasm generated by the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions gave his teaching its first..."

Source Baha'i Faith In The United States (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "by the denominational synod meeting in New York" to publish a monthly periodical from Hackensack, New Jersey."

Source The Banner (Magazine) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "by the denominational synod meeting in New York, New York in June, 1866, to publish a monthly periodical" called The Banner of Truth from Hackensack, New Jersey; that de Baun sold it in 1903 to..."

Source The Banner (Magazine) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "of Ethiopian Jewish history, and this New York University Press book is his standard scholarly history of the Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jewish community, from its earliest documented period through..."

Source The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth CenturySteven Kaplan

This source names New York directly: "Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York first sought to worship separately in 1796 and incorporated their own congregation in 1801, and before the young church had a single ordained minister..."

Source Our Church, The A.M.E. Zion Church (amezion.org)The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

This source names New York directly: "Buddhism, and this State University of New York Press book is his scholarly study of the life and thought of Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, the founder of the Jonang school's distinctive shentong..."

Source The Buddha from Dolpo: A Study of the Life and Thought of the Tibetan Master Dolpopa Sherab GyaltsenCyrus Stearns

This source names New York directly: "Buddhism, and this State University of New York Press book is his academic survey of Theravada Buddhist belief and practice across Southeast Asia, covering both textual doctrine and the lived..."

Source The Buddhist World of Southeast AsiaDonald K. Swearer

This source names New York directly: "the Cardiff Giant, the Cooperstown, New York museum that holds and displays the famous 1869 hoax figure."

Source The Cardiff Giant (The Farmers' Museum)The Farmers' Museumthe holders' own account

This source names New York directly: "book, published by State University of New York Press, examines the doctrine of spanda, or vibration, central to Kashmir Shaiva philosophy and practice, working from Sanskrit primary texts and their..."

Source The Doctrine of Vibration: An Analysis of the Doctrines and Practices of Kashmir ShaivismMark S. G. Dyczkowski

This source names New York directly: "Designed by the artist David Wilson of South New Berlin, New York and fabricated at D."

Source Community of Christ, "Independence Temple Self-Guided Tour" (west entrance window)Community of Christthe holders' own account

This source names New York directly: "from Syracuse University Press, A New York State Study, is the standard scholarly account of the Six Nations during the American Revolution, covering the Oneida's break from the other five nations..."

Source The Iroquois in the American RevolutionBarbara Graymont

This source names New York directly: "The New York Times called it the best selling nonfiction book of the 1970s in the United States; reported sales reached roughly ten million copies by the end of that decade and have since been put..."

Source The Late Great Planet Earth (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "Carlson's authorship, the 1970 Zondervan publication, the New York Times's characterization of it as the decade's best selling nonfiction title, its dispensationalist content and specific..."

Source The Late Great Planet Earth (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "short stories of 1920s and 1930s New York gamblers and gangsters, and stating that Sergeant Sarah Brown's military title "is an obvious reference to the Salvation Army." Also covers the show's..."

Source The Many Creative Wellsprings For The Musical Guys And Dolls (Debi Simons)Debi Simons

This source names New York directly: "in present-day Dutchess County, New York and preceding further North American missions, including a Labrador settlement at Nain in 1771 and a Cherokee mission at Springplace, Georgia in 1801."

Source Moravian Church (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "and a Mohican mission at Shekomeko, New York in 1740."

Source Moravian Church (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 2002, is the standard scholarly monograph on the emergence of the six syllable mantra Om Mani Padme Hum in India around the middle of the first..."

Source The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A Study of the Karandavyuha SutraAlexander Studholme

This source names New York directly: "two predecessor churches had kept in New York and Atlanta."

Source Stories From GA: 1983 Reunion (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.))

This source names New York directly: "Church of the Healing Christ in New York."

Source The Sermon on the Mount (book) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "is a scholarly account of the 1869 New York fraud trial of spirit photographer William Mumler, who was acquitted for lack of proof though never rehabilitated in public opinion."

Source The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit PhotographerLouis Kaplan

This source names New York directly: "based communal group active in New York from 1957 to 1992 whose leadership exercised extensive control over members' personal and family lives under a stated ideology of radical individualism."

Source The Sullivan Institute/Fourth Wall Community: The Relationship of Radical Individualism and AuthoritarianismAmy B. Siskind

This source names New York directly: "Shaivism, and this State University of New York Press monograph is an academic study of the Kaula Tantric tradition as systematized by the tenth century philosopher Abhinavagupta in his encyclopedic..."

Source The Triadic Heart of Siva: Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta in the Non-dual Shaivism of KashmirPaul E. Muller-Ortega

This source names New York directly: "Publishing Association in Syracuse, New York, running to 690 numbered hymns."

Source The Wesleyan Methodist Hymnal (Hymnary.org)Wesleyan Methodist Publishing Association

This source names New York directly: "from the society's 1875 founding in New York through Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Blavatsky's move of its headquarters to Adyar in 1882."

Source Theosophical Society Adyar (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "its history from the society's 1875 New York founding through later organizational splits and its present Adyar affiliated structure headquartered in Wheaton, Illinois."

Source Theosophical Society in America (Theosophy Wiki)Theosophy Wiki contributors

This source names New York directly: "Breslaw is a historian, and this New York University Press book is her academic study of Tituba, the enslaved woman at the center of the Salem witchcraft accusations, focusing specifically on the..."

Source Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan FantasiesElaine G. Breslaw

This source names New York directly: "of new religious movements, and this New York University Press monograph is her scholarly study of Transcendental Meditation and comparable Hindu-inspired meditation movements as a distinct category..."

Source Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New ReligionLola Williamson

This source names New York directly: "record of Trinity Church Cemetery in New York is an active federal heritage record carrying direct institutional authority as the agency responsible for documenting sites of national historic..."

Source Trinity Church Cemetery

This source names New York directly: "Strongest in rural New England and upstate New York through the nineteenth century, it developed a strong tradition of social reform activism, including early ordination of women ministers, and..."

Source The Unitarians and the UniversalistsDavid Robinson

This source names New York directly: "in 1805, though his family moved to New York before the visions that founded Mormonism began, and a granite monument at his birthplace now marks the site as a Latter day Saint pilgrimage destination."

Source The Oxford Handbook of MormonismTerryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (eds.)

This source names New York directly: "the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, the Accademia Carrara and the Colleoni family in Bergamo."

Source Divinity Atlas Long-Form Articles, First Edition

This source names New York directly: "Its authority rests on extensive original interview fieldwork and New York University Press's standard scholarly peer review."

Source Visions of Zion: Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised LandErin C. MacLeod

This source names New York directly: "Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York v."

Source Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York v. Village of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150Supreme Court of the United States

This source names New York directly: "publisher's origin as Samuel Weiser's New York occult bookshop, its growth into a dedicated publisher of esoteric, occult and pagan texts, and its later acquisition and continuation as Red Wheel..."

Source Weiser Books: A Brief HistoryGuest Contributor

This source names New York directly: "Wall Heritage Foundation Inc, the New York-registered 501(c)(3) fundraising affiliate that supports restoration and educational work at the Western Wall, most recently reporting 12,790,747 dollars..."

Source Western Wall Heritage Foundation Inc, IRS Form 990 Filings (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)

This source names New York directly: "by the Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery in New York, its first woman minister; and on the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the southern body) reaching the same decision in 1964, with Rachel..."

Source Women Ministers, 1955 to 1966, and Margaret Towner (The Presbyterian Outlook)

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 2021 in its Hindu Studies series, is an ethnography of astrological practice in Banaras built on fieldwork and interviews with fifty working..."

Source Words of Destiny: Practicing Astrology in North IndiaCaterina Guenzi

This source names New York directly: "the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York hosted the twelfth World Zoroastrian Congress at the New York Hilton Midtown, the faith's first congress held in the United States since 2000."

Source 12th World Zoroastrian Congress 2022 NYC (FEZANA)

Showing 51 to 91 of 91 in Associated With, page 2 of 2.

Contained In

Sacred To

Harlem's churches produced much of American gospel music.

Judaism, Religions

New York holds the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel.

Spread Events Here

Source Jehovah's Witnesses, One Hundred Years: 1917 (2017 Yearbook, jw.org)
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Entries: Judaism in North America; Nation of Islam; New Religious MovementsView the Source
3. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X with Alex Haley, Grove Press, 1965
Hare Krishna Transformed
E. Burke Rochford Jr., New York University Press, 2007View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.