Rebecca Samuel

Originally from a vibrant Jewish community in Hamburg, Rebecca Samuel immigrated to America in the 1780s to escape the guild restrictions her husband was subject to as a watchmaker in Germany. Though they welcomed the increased economic opportunities they found in the United States, and the absence of antisemitism in the small town of Petersburg, where they originally settled in Virginia, Samuel was disappointed by the lack of Jewish communal life in the town. She and her husband eventually moved to Charleston, South Carolina, home to the largest Jewish community in America at that time.