In Jews and Judaism in the United States: A Documentary History, prominent Jewish Historian Marc Raphael wrote “Jewish merchants played a major role in the slave trade. In fact, in all the American colonies, whether French, British, or Dutch, Jewish merchants frequently dominated. This was no less true on the North American mainland, where during the eighteenth century Jews participated in the triangular slave trade that brought slaves from Africa to the West Indies and there exchanged them for molasses….”
Jewish historical records show that Jewish involvement in the North American slave trade was so dominant that slave posts were frequently closed on Jewish holidays. Arnold Wiznitzer, a Jewish historian, wrote, “the buyers who appeared at the auctions were almost always Jews, and because of their lack of competitors they could buy slaves at low prices. If it happened that the date of such an auction fell on a Jewish holiday the auction had to be postponed” In The United States Jewry 1776-1985 Jacob Marcus wrote, “all through the eighteenth century, into the early nineteenth century, Jews in the North were to own black servants. In 1820 over 75% of all Jewish families in Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah owned slaves. Almost 40% of all Jewish householders in the United States owned one slave or more.” In the South, which had a much higher ratio of slave ownership than the North, only 5% of white people owned slaves.