List of Jewish political milestones in the United States

The following is a list of Jewish political milestones in the United States.

• First Jewish member of a colonial legislature (South Carolina): Francis Salvador (1775) ^[1]
• First Jewish soldier killed in the American Revolutionary War: Francis Salvador (1776) ^[2]
• First Jewish elected official in the United States: Judah Hays; as the Fire Commissioner of the Boston Fire Department (1805) ^[3]
  • Francis Salvador was elected prior to the formation of the United States.
• First Jewish member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Lewis Charles Levin (1845) ^[4]
• First Jewish member of the U.S. Senate: David Levy Yulee (1845) ^[5]
• First Jewish mayor of a major American city (Portland, Oregon): Bernard Goldsmith (1869)
  • Two years later, Philip Wasserman succeeded him as mayor.
• First Jewish governor of a U.S. state (California): Washington Bartlett (1887) ^[6]
• First Jewish U.S. Cabinet member (Secretary of Commerce and Labor): Oscar Straus (1906) ^[7]
  • Not including Judah P. Benjamin, who served in the Confederate Cabinet as Secretary of State and Secretary of War. ^[8]
• First Jewish Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Louis Brandeis (1916) ^[9]
  • President Millard Fillmore offered to appoint Judah P. Benjamin to the Supreme Court in 1853, but Benjamin declined. ^[8]
• First Jewish female member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Florence Prag Kahn (1925) ^[10]
• First Jewish Secretary of the Treasury: Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1934) ^[11]
• First person of Jewish ancestry to run for President of the United States on a major party ticket: Barry Goldwater (1964) (Goldwater's father was Jewish; Goldwater was raised Episcopalian) ^{[12] [13]}
• First person of Sephardic Jewish ancestry to run for President of the United States: Louis Abolafia (1968) ^[14]
• First Jewish candidate to receive an electoral vote for Vice President: Tonie Nathan of the Libertarian Party, from a faithless elector (1972) ^[15]
• First Jewish Secretary of Defense: Harold Brown (1973) ^[16]
• First Jewish Secretary of State: Henry Kissinger (1973) ^[17]
• First Jewish Mayor of New York City: Abraham Beame (1974), (Fiorello LaGuardia, who was mayor from 1934 to 1946, was born to an Italian Jewish mother from Trieste and a lapsed Catholic turned atheist father from Apulia; however, he was a Protestant) ^[18]
• First Jewish Attorney General: Edward H. Levi (1975) ^[19]
• First Jewish female mayor of a major American city (Dallas): Adlene Harrison (1976) ^[20]
• First Jewish female governor of a U.S. state (Vermont): Madeleine M. Kunin (1985) ^[21]
• First Jewish openly gay member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Barney Frank (took office 1981, disclosed homosexuality 1989) ^[22]
  • Jared Polis became the first Jewish Congressman to be openly gay upon first election: (2009) ^[23]
• First U.S. Senate election in which both major party candidates were Jewish: 1990 Minnesota U.S. Senate Election; with Paul Wellstone defeated Rudy Boschwitz (1990) ^[24]
• First independent Jewish member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Bernie Sanders (1991) ^[25]
• First Jewish female members of the U.S. Senate: Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (1993) ^[26]
• First Jewish female Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993) ^[27]
• First female Cabinet-level official: Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. Trade Representative (1997) ^[28]
• First Jewish nominee for Vice President of the United States on a major party ticket, and first Jewish candidate to receive an electoral vote, excluding faithless electors: Joe Lieberman (2000) ^[29]
• First Jewish U.S. House whip: Eric Cantor (2009) (also first Jewish whip in either chamber of Congress) ^[30]
• First Jewish U.S. House floor leader: Eric Cantor (2011)(also first Jewish floor leader and majority leader in either chamber of Congress) ^[30]
• First Jewish female U.S. Cabinet member in the Presidential Line of Succession (Secretary of Commerce): Penny Pritzker (2013) ^[31]
• First Jewish American to win a presidential primary (New Hampshire) and delegates: Bernie Sanders (2016) ^{[32] [33] [34] [35]} (Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, was the first winner of Jewish heritage, but was a Christian). ^[36]
• First Jewish American to receive an electoral vote for President: Bernie Sanders, from a faithless elector (2016) ^[37] (Barry Goldwater was the first of Jewish heritage, in 1964, but was not Jewish)
• First Jewish U.S. Senate floor leader: Chuck Schumer (2017) (also first Jewish minority leader in either chamber of Congress) ^[38]
• First Jewish Second Gentleman (and first Jewish American spouse of Vice President): Douglas Emhoff (2021)
• First Jewish U.S. Senate majority leader: Chuck Schumer (2021)
• First Jewish female (and the first woman) Secretary of the Treasury: Janet Yellen (2021)

See also

• List of Jewish American politicians

References

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2. Green, David B. (2013-08-01). "1776: The First Jew to Die for the Cause of the American Revolution". Haaretz. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
3. Sharick, David. "Timeline: Jewish Politics in Boston". Digital History of the Jews of Boston. Retrieved May 24, 2024.
4. "Lewis Charles Levin". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
5. "David Levy Yulee". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
6. "Moses Alexander: Jewish Governor of Idaho, First Jewish Governor in the United States". Jewish Museum of the American West.
7. "First Jew in Cabinet". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1934-07-11. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
8. "Judah Benjamin". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
9. "Louis D. Brandeis, Pioneer of the Senate Confirmation Battles". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
10. "KAHN, Florence Prag | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives". history.house.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
11. "Henry Morgenthau". encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
12. "The Goldwaters | Southwest Jewish Archives". swja.library.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
13. Journal, Harry Stein is a contributing editor of City; Racist, the author of No Matter What They’ll Call This Book; Tripp, the comic novel Will; Attorney-at-Law, Pissed-Off (2016-10-14). "The Goldwater Takedown". City Journal. Retrieved 2020-02-24.{{cite web}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
14. Stevenson, James (1967-05-13). "Abolafia for President". New Yorker.
15. "Theodora "Tonie" Nathan -". Archives of Women's Political Communication. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
16. McFadden, Robert D. (January 5, 2019). "Harold Brown, Defense Secretary in Carter Administration, Dies at 91". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 5, 2019.
17. Ribak, Gil (2010-01-01). "A Jew for All Seasons: Henry Kissinger, Jewish Expectations, and the Yom Kippur War". Israel Studies Review. 25 (2): 1–25. doi:10.3167/isf.2010.250201. ISSN   2159-0370.
18. Green, David (2012-11-06). "This Day in Jewish History: 1973: A Jewish Mayor for New York City". Haaretz.
19. "Edward H. Levi | Office of the Provost". provost.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
20. "Adlene Harrison | Washington Post". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2021-01-06.
21. "Madeleine May Kunin | Jewish Women's Archive". jwa.org. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
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24. "Talk:Paul Wellstone", Wikipedia, 2019-02-12, retrieved 2020-02-24
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26. Stone, Kurt F. (2011). The Jews of Capitol Hill : a Compendium of Jewish Congressional Members. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group. ISBN   978-0-8108-7738-2. OCLC   700706822.
27. "Ruth Bader Ginsburg". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
28. Jewish Woman's Archive: "Charlene Barshefsky" by Robert D. Johnson retrieved November 19, 2012
29. "Lieberman, Joseph I., (born 24 Feb. 1942), Member for Connecticut, US Senate, 1989–2012 (Democrat 1989–2006, Ind Democrat, 2006–12)", Who's Who, Oxford University Press, 2007-12-01, doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.24536
30. "Eric Cantor". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
31. Guttman, Nathan (May 2, 2013). "Why It Took Penny Pritzker 4 Years To Win Commerce Secretary Nomination". The Forward . Retrieved August 28, 2024.
32. "New Hampshire Primary Election Results 2016 - The New York Times". The New York Times . Retrieved 2016-06-18.
33. Healy, Patrick; Martin, Jonathan (February 10, 2016). "Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Win the New Hampshire Primaries". The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2016. ...Mr. Sanders was the choice, nearly unanimously, among voters who said it was most important to have a candidate who is "honest and trustworthy."
34. "Bernie Sanders becomes first Jewish, non-Christian candidate to win U.S. primary". The Week. February 9, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2016.
35. Krieg, Gregory. "Bernie Sanders could be the first Jewish president. Does he care?", CNN (February 5, 2016): "Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, has repeatedly described himself as a secular Jew...."
36. Krieg, Gregory (February 5, 2016). "Sanders 1st Jewish candidate to win presidential primary". CNN.
37. Seven Presidential Electors Are Allowed to Cast Votes for Candidates Other than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton Ballot Access News
38. O'Keefe, Ed; DeBonis, Mike. "Schumer is next top Senate Democrat, adds Sanders to leadership ranks". Washington Post. Retrieved 6 January 2017.