CIVIL WAR — ORDER Number 11

Civil War hero, General Ulysses S. Grant, issued the infamous Order No. 11 on December 17th, 1862. It expelled all Jews as a class from Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, states under his command. It was probably one of the worst acts of Antisemitism in American history; Grant wrongfully blamed the Jews for war-time cotton exploitation.

Abe Lincoln became a hero to the Jews by quickly revoking the order, possibly influenced by close friends of the Jewish faith; there was Abraham Jonas of Quincy, Illinois, Abraham Zacharie, a Jewish chiropractor who had an open door to the White House. Lincoln used Zacharie for secret missions to meet with Southern leaders. And also there was Jacob Frankel appointed by Lincoln as the first American rabbi to serve as army chaplain.

This may be the biggest shocker of all! Rutgers University historian Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman makes the provocative claim that Lincoln was probably of Sephardic descent. Hirschman stated that “not only does it seem likely that Lincoln was of Jewish ancestry, but that he was probably aware of it.”