>With the Richmond government's collapse in spring 1865, the Confederate Secretary of War made his way in secret southward, finally reaching Florida where a blockade runner took him to England. The vessel was at one point stopped and searched by US Navy personnel, during which time Benjamin posed as a common ship's cook. One of the Navy men remarked it was the first time he'd ever seen a Jew do manual labor.[3]
He became a respected legal scholar in England and some of his works are still cited there today. Probably gay, certainly a “lifelong bachelor”.
>>18455461>Benjaminhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXF0vwGEtUA
>>18455781The most sad thing about Benjamin was the degree to which he was a product of his environment. He desperately wanted to fit in and be socially accepted. Beimg a slaver was what wealthy southerners did, so he was going to do it too and ardently defend it to demonstrate his loyalty despite being of a religious minority. If his family had settled in Boston he probably would have been an adamant abolitionist.
>>18455822The vast majority of Jews came to the US during the Ellis Island days. They were a small minority prior to that time who voted Federalist/Whig in the antebellum era. After the Civil War Jews in the North were Republicans and Democrats in the South. This was the case until the 1920s when the giant mass of Ellis Islanders shifted them into a rock solid Democrat bloc.
>>18456290What happened to old school Sephardi Jews? Did they simply assimilated into Ashkenazi Jewish mass ?
