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South Carolina was the first place in America to elect a Jew to public office: Francis Salvador, elected in 1774 and 1775 to the Provincial Congress, in 1776 died in action as the first Jewish American killed in the Revolution.
The first major Jewish community in the South was formed in Charleston, South Carolina. By 1700, there was a small Jewish community in Charles Town, as the colony was then called. [7] The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, the charter of the colony, guaranteed religious freedom and allowed Jews to own property.
Francis Salvador (1747 – 1 August 1776) was an English-born American plantation owner in the colony of South Carolina from the Sephardic Jewish community of London; in 1774, he was the first professing Jew to be elected to public office in the colonies when chosen for the Provincial Congress.
Early examples include a Jewish orphanage set up in Charleston, South Carolina in 1801, and the first Jewish school, Polonies Talmud Torah, established in New York in 1806. In 1843, the first national secular Jewish organization in the United States, the B'nai B'rith was established.
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 ]
Sephardic Jews migrated to the city in such numbers that Charleston eventually was home to, by the beginning of the 19th century and until about 1830, the largest and wealthiest Jewish community in North America [12] [13] The Jewish Coming Street Cemetery, first established in 1762, attests to their long-standing presence in the community.
Eldridge Street Synagogue, 1886–87, Manhattan, was the first grand house of worship built by Eastern European Jews; Congregation Kneses Tifereth Israel, founded 1887, Port Chester, New York. The congregation first held services in the homes of founding members until a building was purchased and designed by acclaimed architect Philip Johnson ...
'Holy Congregation House of God', [3] also known as K. K. Beth Elohim, or more simply Congregation Beth Elohim) is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located in Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States. Having founded the congregation in 1749, it was later claimed to be the first Reform synagogue located in the United States. [4]