Everything about Mordecai Manuel Noah totally explained
Mordecai Manuel Noah (
July 14,
1785,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,-
May 22,
1851,
New York) was an American
playwright,
diplomat,
journalist, and
utopian. Born in a family of
Portuguese Sephardic ancestry; he was the first Jew born in the United States to reach national prominence.
Noah engaged in trade and law, but when removing to
Charleston, South Carolina, dedicated himself to politics.
In 1811, he was appointed by President
James Madison as
consul at
Riga, then part of
Imperial Russia, but declined, and, in 1813, was nominated Consul to the Kingdom of
Tunis, where he rescued American citizens kept as slaves by Morroccan masters. Allegedly, Noah was removed from this position because, in the words of
US Secretary of State James Monroe, his religion was "an obstacle to the exercise of [his] Consular function." The firing caused outrage among Jews and non-Jews alike.
Manuel Noah moved to New York, where he founded and edited
The National Advertiser,
The New York Enquirer (later merged into
The Courier and Enquirer),
The Evening Star, and
The Sunday Times newspapers.
In 1819, Noah's most successful play,
She Would Be a Soldier, was produced. That play has since established Noah as America's first important Jewish American writer.
She Would Be a Soldier is now included in college level anthologies.
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In 1820, in a precursor to modern
Zionism, he tried to found a Jewish homeland at
Grand Island in the
Niagara River, to be called "
Ararat," after
Mount Ararat, the Biblical resting place of
Noah's Ark. He erected a monument at the island which read "Ararat, a City of Refuge for the Jews, founded by Mordecai M. Noah in the Month of Tishri, 5586 (September, 1825) and in the Fiftieth Year of American Independence." Some have speculated whether Noah's utopian ideas may have influenced
Joseph Smith, who founded the
Latter Day Saint movement in Upstate New York a few years later. In his
Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews Noah proclaimed his faith that the Jews would return and rebuild their ancient homeland. Noah called on America to take the lead in this endeavor.
From 1827-1828, Noah led
New York City's
Tammany Hall political machine.
MacArthur Award-winning cartoonist
Ben Katchor fictionalized Noah's scheme for
Grand Island in his
The Jew of New York. Noah is also a minor characher in
Gore Vidal's 1973 novel
Burr.
The modern edition of Noah's writings is
The Selected Writings of Mordecai Noah edited by Michael Schuldiner and Daniel Kleinfeld, and published by Greenwood Press.
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