To assert their status and belonging in American society during the colonial and Federal periods, early American Jews commissioned leading artists to paint portraits that were then displayed prominently in their homes. Richard Brilliant examines family and regional groupings, concluding that, in these portraits, Jewish individuals and families chose to identify as beloning to a prominent merchant class, rather than to a particular ethnic group or religion. Ellen Smith explores the tension between Jewish self-representation in portraits and the social reality of early American Jewish life. Her well illustrated overview of early American Jewish colonial history and culture captures the texture of everyday family life and the Jewish community's relationship with society as a whole, documented by diaries, letters, business records, and domestic objects that have survived to this day. The book is supplemented with a chronology from 1620 to 1830, genealogical and population information, and a map showing the regions settled by early American Jewish communities. Indices facilitate the location of portraits and biographies as well as the artists.