lso misleading: The Puritans did indeed come to America for religious freedom, but only for themselves. They wished to be able to worship as they wished - but this did not translate into tolerance for the religious beliefs and practices of others or into an attempt to create the kind of religiously pluralistic community that we enjoy in the United States today. They most certainly did not come to create a place where non-Christians might practice their beliefs openly.
The early Europeans turned on each other in a succession of violent acts of religious intolerance directed at least initially at other Christians(http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9156/RITER.HTM). Of course, not all early European settlers of America - nor even all Puritans - were themselves intolerant. There were those even among the Puritans who believed that both religious belief and religious practice must be a matter of personal conscience and that no true Christian would attempt to force his or her own mode of worship or belief on another.
It was such early believers in the importance of freedom of conscience who set the stage for Jewish immigration to the United States. Banished over the previous millennium from country after country, the Jews of Europe were continually seeking a place where they might settle and build communities in which they would be safe. Some began to think that perhaps the New World would offer a sanctuary from the bigotry and violence of Europe an
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