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The story of the first Jews in colonial America is a compelling one.Sephardi Jews from England and Holland, as well as those who had escaped persecution in the Iberian Peninsula, made their way to the colonies in the United States beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, while Ashkenazi Jews made their way to the colonies from Poland, Austria, Germany and Russia to find refuge and establish a better life.In a bid to include this Jewish history as part of early America’s story, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia acquired its first Judaica items in April from the period when the first Jews were living in Britain’s 13 American colonies. These include a sterling silver and gold kiddush cup,and a silver and gold yad (a pointer for reading the Torah). According to the foundation, the earliest documentation of Jews in Virginia dates back to the 1620s, with the arrival of Elias LeGarde, Joseph Moise and Rebecca Isaacke.According to a report by Antique Trader, the silver and gold kiddush cup was made in London probably by William Harrison I in about 1775, while the yad was made in Birmingham, England, around 1843. Chinese porcelain plates and saucers, as well as an alphabet sampler, made by a young Jewish girl named Rachel Cole have also been added to the Judaica collection.“The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation sees the objects in its collections as documents of the people, places and events of the past,” Ronald L. Hurst, the foundation’s Carlisle Humelsine