Nadene Goldfoot
Stuyvesant, himself a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, opposed religious pluralism and came into conflict with Lutherans, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Quakers as they attempted to build places of worship in the city and practice their faiths.
New Amsterdam was a Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island that became New York City. In 1624, 30 families established the Dutch colony of New Netherland on Governor's Island in New York Harbor. The following year, the Dutch established New Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan. In 1664, the British took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York after the Duke of York. The Dutch gave up their claim to New Amsterdam and the rest of the colony after the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–67.
Jews started settling in Brazil when the Inquisition reached Portugal, in the 16th century. They arrived in Brazil during the period of Dutch rule, setting up in Recife the first synagogue in the Americas, the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, as early as 1636. Most of those Jews were Sephardic Jews who had fled the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal to the religious freedom of the Netherlands. Because of the Inquisition, a small number of Sephardic Jews also immigrated to Brazil during its early settlements and were known as "New Christians" - Conversos (pt.) or Marranos (sp.) — Jews obliged to convert to Roman Catholicism by the Portuguese crown. 
Flag of Dutch West India Company
The West India Company managed to conquer parts of Brazil from Portugal in 1630. That same year, the colony of New Holland was founded, with a capital in Mauritsstad (present-day Recife). In the meantime, the war demanded so many of its forces that the company had to operate under a permanent threat of bankruptcy. Many Sephardic Jews from Holland and England worked with the maritime trade of the Dutch West India Company, especially with the sugar production in the northeast of Brazil.
The first Jews who arrived in South America were Sephardic Jews who, after being expelled from Brazil by the Portuguese, settled in the northeast Dutch colony. Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue was the first synagogue in the Americas, established in Recife in 1636 and a community of about 1,450 Sephardic Jews lived there.
When Portugal re-conquered Brazil in 1654, all Jews were expelled. Most fled to Holland. Some settled in the Indies.
It was in early September, 23 Jewish refugees arrived from the Brazilian city of Recife, which had been conquered by the Portuguese in January 1654. The director-general of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, sought to turn them away but was ultimately overruled by the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam. When the Portuguese retook Recife in 1654, 23 Jews from the community escaped to the Dutch North American colony of New Amsterdam, that in 1664 would become New York City. The first Dutch Jews known to have arrived in New Amsterdam arrived in 1654. First to arrive were Solomon Pietersen and Jacob Barsimson, who sailed during the summer of 1654 directly from Holland, with passports that gave them permission to trade in the colony.
They had arrived in a small boat, so close to shore, only to be turned away by Stuyvesant. They had to wait till others in New Amsterdam checked and found they were refugees of the city that gave them most of their business, and were given the word to ALLOW them into the city of New Amsterdam!
So the Jews, as simple refugees from a war zone, were not allowed in but as stockholders or people from the main business of New Amsterdam of Brazil, they were allowed to enter. Business and money before feelings of doing the right thing! According to affairs today, nothing has changed.
The twenty-three Jews decided to settle in New Amsterdam. The governor, Peter Stuyvesant, was violently opposed to having Jews corrupting his town. He sought permission from the Netherlands to expel them. The Dutch West India Company, pressured by influential Jews in Holland, refused.
Stuyvesant then tried to add a tax on Jews because he wouldn’t allow them to stand guard duty. The Jews petitioned and received the right to stand guard duty and to engage in wholesale and retail trade.
Asser Levy, an Ashkenazi Jew who was one of the 23 refugees, eventually prospered and in 1661 became the first Jew to own a house in New Amsterdam, which also made him the first Jew known to have owned a house anywhere in North America.
Levy was probably born in Amsterdam, where he lived for a time but was not given burgher (citizenship) rights. Levy's wife was named Miriam. From Amsterdam, he moved to the New World; he was one of the 23 Jewish refugees who fled from Recife after the end of Dutch rule in the area although is not listed in the extant congregational minute books of the Brazilian Jewish community. It is known that he eventually went to New Netherland, possibly arriving in New Amsterdam aboard the St. Catherine or St. Charles in early September 1654.
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