An Israelite in Egyptian Clothing
I went to graduate school at Brandeis University, and if I hadn't, I would've gone to law school at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, in Louisville, KY, where the first Jewish justice to sit on the Supreme Court was born, and raised. But what if I told you that story was almost wildly different. That the first Jewish nominee to sit on the bench was almost put forward almost 60 years before Brandeis was nominated, but he turned down the nomination. And thank goodness, otherwise the first Jewish justice would have resigned, to join the Confederacy.
Written Format*
When I think about brothers fighting brothers, like we read about in the Torah this week, there’s one place my mind automatically goes, and no it’s not to my own brother. It’s the American Civil War. And when I think about the Civil War, as a Jew, I think about the stories of people who joined up on either side, some who felt loyalty to a home state struggling to discern the blurred American lines between statehood and nationhood. Others, remembering the words of the Haggadah, were loyal to the Union, and southern Jews in particular were often harassed for not being overtly loyal enough, a Jewish experience that would have felt as home in the old world as in the new.
But there’s one Jew in particular, whose story I have to share, because he was essentially the silent number two in the Confederate war cabinet, Jefferson Davis’s administrative right hand, and the economic mind behind a war strategy that very nearly propelled the south to victory. And thank goodness he failed. I’m talking about Judah P. Benjamin who was, to quote Wikipedia, because I love how the editor wrote it, Judah the first Jewa elected to the United States Senate, without first renouncing his faith.
Judah Benjamin was born in the Danish West Indies, to a Sephardic Jewish family. His family had moved to St. Croix during the Napoleonic Wars, when the British Navy occupied the island and wrested it from French control. In 1813 they moved to Fayetteville, NC and then later on to Charleston, SC—at the time the largest Jewish community in the United States, and home to a thriving Sephardic congregation. Eventually, Benjamin made his was to Louisiana, where he was elected to the state legislature, and built the political network that powered him to the US Senate and beyond.
You might be wondering how a Jew wound up on the Confederate side. It’s a simple answer, loyalty, or the perception of loyalty at least, but it’s a question that American Jews have been puzzling over since the war first broke out, one that every Jewish Supreme Court nominee has faced, because it turns out that the first Jewish nominee for the United States Supreme Court was Judah Benjamin, who turned down the nomination by President Millard Fillmore in 1853. 150 years later, in remarks to the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on Benjamin’s appointment, and her connection to him as the longest serving Jewish member of the body.
On walls of my chambers, I have posted in two places the command from Deuteronomy -- "Zedek, Zedek," "Justice, Justice shalt thou pursue." Those words are an ever present reminder of what judges must do "that they may thrive." There is an age old connection between social justice and Jewish tradition. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, whose tenure on the Court, 1962-1965, was far too brief, once said: "My concern for justice, for peace, for enlightenment, . . . stems from my heritage." Justice Breyer and I are fortunate to be linked to that heritage.
Preparing some years ago for a lecture on the Jewish Justices who preceded Justice Breyer and me, I learned that Louis D. Brandeis was not the first Jewish nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. I have since read more about the man who might have been first, and thought perhaps you would find his life as intriguing as I did. The person who might have preceded Brandeis hailed from Louisiana. His name was Judah Benjamin. He was intensely involved in public affairs, though you and I would agree that he chose the wrong side.
Contemporary opinions of Benjamin were mixed. Salomon de Rothschild called him the greatest mind in North America, while during a Senate debate over slavery, a Union Senator is rumored to have called Benjamin an Israelite in Egyptian clothing. You don’t really want to know what Benjamin is rumored to have said in response. There’s nothing in the official record to back up the story, but who knows. In any event, Judah Benjamin was seen as sure of himself, convinced of his victory every time he stepped into a courtroom, and even cocky.
Of course the brother fighting with his brothers in this weeks Torah portion was also cocky, which is what got Joseph cast into a pit, and eventually led him to actually be an Israelite in Egyptian clothing. But Judah Benjamin didn’t rise again after the Confederacy fell. Not really. He made his was to England, where he built a new legal career, but never achieved the same political success. He died in 1884, and he’s buried in Paris in a grave that didn’t bear his name until 1938 when the United Daughters of the Confederacy added a plague in his honor.
And with that complicated ending, I wish you a Shabbat shalom.
Thanks for listening.
*written format may differ from recorded versions
