Judah P. Benjamin

Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (August 11, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was a lawyer and politician who was a United States Senator from Louisiana, a Cabinet officer of the Confederate States and, after his escape to the United Kingdom at the end of the American Civil War, an English barrister. Benjamin was the first Jew to be elected to the United States Senate who had not renounced the religion, and the first of that faith to hold a Cabinet position in North America. Benjamin was born to Sephardic Jewish parents from London, who had moved to St. Croix in the Danish West Indies when it was occupied by Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Seeking greater opportunities, his emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Charleston, South Carolina. Benjamin attended Yale College but left without graduating and moved to New Orleans, where he read law and passed the bar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_P._Benjamin

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