Benjamin Abraham Nones | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | May 2, 1826 69) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US | (aged
Occupation(s) | Soldier, merchant |
Spouse | Miriam Marks |
Benjamin Abraham Nones was an American patriot, soldier, merchant, slave owner, and abolitionist. He was a respected merchant in Philadelphia and a prominent member of the city's Jewish community. He served as a major in the Continental Army. [1]
Nones, a Sephardic Jew, was born in Bordeaux, France in 1757. [2] He was the son of Rachel and Abraham Nones.
Nones was a respected merchant in Philadelphia. Influential in the city's Jewish community, he was a member of Congregation Mikveh Israel. [2] Nones served as the parnas of Mikveh Israel for 13 years and was an officer for the Society of Ezrath Orchim, Philadelphia's first Jewish charity. [1]
Nones was appointed a Major in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He served on the staffs of George Washington and of the Marquis de Lafayette. He also fought against the British in the Second Battle of Savannah under Louis-Alexandre Berthier. He was captured by the British at the Siege of Charleston in 1780, and remained a prisoner of war until the surrender of British General Cornwallis in October 1781. [1]
In the summer of 1800, an antisemitic attack against Nones was printed in the Gazette of the United States . Nones responded in writing that "I am a Jew, and if for no other reason, for that reason I am a republican...In republics we have rights, in monarchies we live but to experience wrongs." [2]
Nones is buried at Mikveh Israel Cemetery in Philadelphia. [3]
The actress Jill Clayburgh is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Nones and the actress Lily Rabe is his great-great-great-great-granddaughter. [4]
Rebecca Gratz was a Jewish American educator and philanthropist in 19th-century America. She was a member of the Gratz family, who settled in the United States before the Revolutionary War.
Haym Salomon was a Polish-born American merchant best known for his actions during the American Revolution, where he was the prime financier to the Continental Congress. Born in Leszno, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Salomon studied finance in Western Europe before emigrating to New York City in 1775. After the American Revolutionary War broke out in the same year, Salomon supported the Patriots by providing financial services while working alongside Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance of the United States.
The history of the Jews in India dates back to antiquity. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in the Indian subcontinent in recorded history. Desi Jews are a small religious minority who have lived in the region since ancient times. They were able to survive for centuries despite persecution by Portuguese colonizers and nonnative antisemitic inquisitions.
Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews are historic terms for the former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
Jews in Philadelphia can trace their history back to Colonial America. Jews have lived in Philadelphia since the arrival of William Penn in 1682.
Mikveh Israel Cemetery is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, giving evidence of a settled community as early as 1740. A number of outstanding patriots, pioneers, and other notables of the Jewish faith who made important contributions to the history and freedom of America during the Colonial and Revolutionary period were interred here, and for this reason, in 1959, by an act of Congress, the burial ground was designated as a unit of the Independence National Historical Park, while continuing to be maintained by the sponsoring Congregation Mikveh Israel. The cemetery was certified by the Philadelphia Historical Commission, and in 1971, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jonas Phillips (1736—1803) was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and an American merchant in New York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the immigrant ancestor of the Jewish Phillips family in the United States. Emigrating from Germany in 1759, Phillips worked off his passage as an indentured servant in Charleston, South Carolina. He moved to the North in 1759, becoming a merchant in New York City and then moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Isaac Leeser was an American Orthodox Jewish religious leader, teacher, scholar and publisher. He helped found the Jewish press of America, produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English, and helped organize various social and educational organizations. He is considered one of the most important nineteenth century American Jewish personalities. He was "fiercely opposed" to Reform Judaism and was regarded as one of the most important "orthodox" rabbis of his era. Leeser is regarded as a forerunner by both Modern Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
Congregation Mikveh Israel, is a Sephardic Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 44 North Fourth Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The congregation traces its history from 1740. Mikveh Israel is a Spanish and Portuguese congregation that follows the rite of the Amsterdam esnoga. It is the oldest synagogue in Philadelphia, and the longest running in the United States.
Gershom Mendes Seixas was the first native-born Jewish religious leader in the United States. He served as the hazzan of Congregation Shearith Israel, New York City's first Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, for about five decades. The first American Jewish clergyman to deliver sermons in English, Mendes Seixas became known for his civic activities as well as his defense of religious liberty, participating in the inauguration of President George Washington and helping found Columbia College, the oldest part of New York City's Columbia University.
The Congregation Shearith Israel, often called The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 2 West 70th Street, at Central Park West, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States.
The Franklin Prophecy, sometimes called the Franklin Forgery, is an antisemitic speech falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, warning of the supposed dangers of admitting Jews to the nascent United States. The speech was purportedly transcribed by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but was unknown before its appearance in 1934 in the pages of William Dudley Pelley's Silver Legion pro-Nazi magazine Liberation. No evidence exists for the document's authenticity, and some of Pelley's claims have actively been disproven.
Sabato Morais was an Italian-American rabbi of Portuguese descent, leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, pioneer of Italian Jewish Studies in America, and founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which initially acted as a center of education for Orthodox Rabbis.
Mordecai Sheftall was a merchant who served as a colonel in the Continental Army. He was from the Province of Georgia. during the American Revolutionary War and was the highest ranking Jewish officer of the Colonial forces. He was born in Savannah, Province of Georgia, to Benjamin and Perla Sheftall, who had arrived in 1733 to the Georgia colony on the William and Sarah from London, England, with a few dozen members of other Jewish immigrant families. The Sheftalls were founding among the members of Congregation Mickve Israel.
Few Jews arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in its early years. As an immigrant port of entry and border town between North and South and as a manufacturing center in its own right, Baltimore has been well-positioned to reflect developments in American Jewish life. Yet, the Jewish community of Baltimore has maintained its own distinctive character as well.
John Moss was a Jewish merchant, shipping magnate, and civic leader. He emigrated to the United States as a glass engraver from London. Moss soon turned to other ventures after glass engraving proved insufficient to sustain a decent wage. He opened a dry goods store in 1807 and soon became a major importer, eventually owning a small merchant fleet. In 1823, he turned control of the business to his brothers and turned his attention to various civic enterprises. He was a founding member of the Musical Fund Society. He served as a steward of the Society of Sons of St. George a mutual-aid society for former Englishmen like himself and was a benefactor of the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum. In 1825, he acted as judge of engraved glass during the Franklin Institute's second exposition of American craftsmanship. .In 1828 he entered into politics by being elected to the Philadelphia City Council's lower house, the Common Council, on the Jacksonian Democratic Party ticket. It was in this capacity that he played a role in the establishment of the Wills Eye Hospital. Later in life he became a supporter of Isaac Leeser's American Jewish Publication Society. In 1840, in the wake of the Damascus Affair Moss led a protest committee from the city of Philadelphia.
Rabbi Bernard Louis Levinthal, the "Dean of U.S. Rabbis," built Philadelphia's first Eastern European Orthodox Jewish community from his arrival in the United States in 1891 until his death in 1952. Rabbi Levinthal helped found American Jewish Orthodox institutions including Yeshiva University in 1896, the Orthodox Union in 1898, Mizrachi in 1902, and the American Agudas Harabbanim. His grave is in Congregation Mikveh Israel's 55th Street Cemetery in West Philadelphia.
The Mikveh Israel Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery known as the Federal Street Burial Ground and located at 11th and Federal Streets in the Passyunk Square neighborhood of South Philadelphia. It was first called Beth Hahayim. It is one of three cemeteries belonging to Congregation Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia's oldest synagogue.
Rabbi Albert E. (Abraham) Gabbai is an American rabbi, serving as the rabbi of the Sephardic synagogue Congregation Mikveh Israel since 1988. Mikveh Israel was founded in 1740, and is the second-oldest active congregation in the United States.
Lucy Marks was an African-American Jew from Philadelphia, one of the few documented Black Jews during early American history. She may have been a member of Congregation Mikveh Israel, and she is buried in Mikveh Israel Cemetery.