The first Jews coming to Texas were notable individuals—and few. But by the mid-19th century, Jewish immigration followed typical patterns along trade and transportation routes and, generally, remained urban and involved families.

Spanish Texas did not welcome easily identifiable Jews, but they came in any case. Jao de la Porta was with Jean Laffite at Galveston in 1816, and Maurice Henry was in Velasco in the late 1820s. Jews fought in the armies of the Texas Revolution of 1836, some with Fannin at Goliad, others at San Jacinto.

Adolphus Sterne, born in Germany, moved to Nacogdoches in 1826, already a friend of Sam Houston. Although he came to America to avoid military service, he sided with the Fredonian Revolution of 1826 and was soon smuggling guns in dry goods crates and gunpowder in coffee containers. In spite of this activity, Sterne served in public office under the Mexican government and later in both houses of the Texas state legislature.

Dr. Albert Levy became a surgeon to revolutionary Texan forces in 1835, participated in the capture of Béxar, and joined the Texas Navy the next year. Shortly after the Texas Revolution, in 1839, Rosanna Osterman became well known as a leader in Galveston's Jewish community. She remained in the city during the Federal capture of the port during the Civil War, acted as nurse to the wounded of both sides, then turned Confederate spy, carrying intelligence about the Federal occupation which helped southern forces retake the city. At her death she bequeathed a fortune to various charities throughout the United States.

Certainly the first Jewish individuals came out of a sense of adventure, or fled hardships and oppression, or moved with a loved one, and the earliest did not always practice their faith openly. Later arrivals came as settlers seeking a new life in a congenial homeland.

Jews have, at times, been targets of oppression from Western Europe to Russia. In Texas, in most years, they found comparative freedom to practice their religion, follow their way of life, and seek opportunity for economic advancement.

Here Jews established a mercantile pattern in which individuals would arrive at a port or urban center and journey along well-established roads selling what they could. Finding a satisfactory business location, they would settle and, preserving their links to sources of supply, would provide a nucleus for others—a chain pattern.

Sanger, Marcus, Zale, Levy, and Sakowitz are only a few of the very well-known names that have defined the entrepreneurial spirit. And individuals have distinguished themselves in art, banking, ranching, law, medicine, and government.

In the largest numbers, Texas's Jewish population lives in cities and always has. An urban Jewish community would develop from a collection of families. A Jewish cemetery usually was established, then benevolent societies, then a synagogue with a community center.

Some individuals arrived with considerable resources, some with only the clothes on their backs; most of them became productive citizens.

Known for their defense of individual social justice, Texas Jews have involved themselves in the changes of modern life while maintaining some of the oldest cultural customs in the world.