Posted on 11/13/2005 6:10:28 PM PST by SJackson
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
I am not surprised in the least that Jews fought for the Union or the CSA. Now an Amish or Quaker that would be a surprise.
Very cool. I have to get that.
I've been interested in both the Confederacy and the Jewish role in it ever since I read "Mr. Benjamin's Sword" as a kid.
Don't let Condi know.
Dixie Ping.
Library of CongressBENJAMIN, Judah Philip, a Senator from Louisiana; born on the Island of St. Croix, Danish West Indies (now Virgin Islands), August 6, 1811; immigrated to Savannah, Ga., in 1816 with his parents, who later settled in Wilmington, N.C.; attended the Fayetteville Academy, Fayetteville, N.C., and Yale College; moved to New Orleans, La., in 1831 and taught school; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1832 and commenced practice in New Orleans; elected to the lower house of the state legislature in 1842 and served until 1844; member of the State constitutional convention in 1845; elected as a Whig to the United States Senate in 1853; reelected as a Democrat in 1859 and served from March 4, 1853, to February 4, 1861, when he withdrew; chairman, Committee on Private Land Claims (Thirty-fourth through Thirty-sixth Congresses); appointed Attorney General under the provisional government of the Confederate States, February 1861; appointed Acting Secretary of War of the Confederate States in August 1861 and served until November 1861, when he was appointed Secretary of War; served in this capacity until February 1862, when he resigned to accept the appointment as Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Jefferson Davis, in which capacity he served until the end of the war; moved to Great Britain in 1865; studied English law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, was admitted to the bar in that city in 1866, and practiced law there; engaged in newspaper and magazine work; received the appointment of Queen’s counsel in 1872; retired in 1883 from active practice and public life; moved to Paris, France, and died there May 6, 1884; interment in Pere la Chaise Cemetery.
Now we really get to why Jesse Jaxxxxxxxxsuuuhnnn hates Jews.
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Judah Benjamin has good company in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris: rocker Jim Morrison.
If Jim Morrison is really dead.
LOL! For some fans, his genius lives still.
Judah Benjamin's grave in Pere La Chaise Cemetary, Paris, France.
Here's a link to the source.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6372266&pt=%3Cb%3EJudah%3C/b%3E%20Benjamin
The first Jew elected to the U.S. Senate was Florida Democrat David Levy Yulee. Yulee was first elected in 1845 and served until 1851 and then served another term from 1855 to 1861. He was the son of Moses Elias Levy, a Moroccan Jew who made his fortune in timber in the Caribbean, then bought 50,000 acres of land near Jacksonville, hoping to create a New Jerusalem for Jewish settlers. Levy County and the city of Yulee are named after this family. Yulee supported slavery and secession. The second Jew in the Senate was Judah Benjamin. More than two dozen Jews have served in the Senate since then.
Counterintuitive, shmounterintuitive. The Torah contains regulations for the treatment of both Jewish and gentile slaves and the ancient Israelites never saw a contradiction between this and coming out of slavery (though I believe there's a midrashic comment about the outrageousness of a Jew who chooses to remain a slave and this is what earns him a hole bored through his ear).
It may defy stereotypes, but the Old South was not anti-Semitic, said Robert Rosen, a lawyer in Charleston who wrote a book titled The Jewish Confederates. Jews held positions of stature in many Southern communities and were typically warmly accepted, including into politics. The first three Jewish U.S. senators were from the South, he said.
"The South has to plead guilty for being racist," he said. "It does not have to plead guilty to being anti-Semitic. ... A lot of the traditional problems Jewish citizens faced at the time, they didn't face in the Old South. They felt very much a part of the community. They had a very strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to the South."
The stereotype of the "anti-Semitic South" comes from an idiotic association of the Confederacy with Nazi Germany that is of fairly recent origin. Unfortunately however, later Southern populist (rightwing socialist) politicians did resort to anti-Semitism, and the current neo-Confederate movement buys into the "money power" / "international bankers" theories which seem fundamentally aimed at Jews. Shame on them!
By the way, two of my favorite historical figures are also buried there: the doomed lovers Heloise and Abelard (who died in the early 13th century).
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