Moses Elias Levy

For the early Pennsylvania settler, see Moses Levy (Pennsylvanian).
Moses Elias Levy
Born1782
Mogador, Morocco
Died(1854-09-07)September 7, 1854
White Sulphur Springs, Virgina

Moses Elias Levy (July 10, 1782 – September 7, 1854; Arabic: موسى إلياس ليفي) was a Moroccan-born American businessman, planter, and social and religious reformer.

Born into an elite Sephardic Jewish family in Morocco, Levy migrated to Gibraltar as a child and later established himself as a merchant-shipper in the Caribbean with extensive business dealings in England, Europe, and the Americas.

After amassing a fortune, Levy ended his business career in favor of a life centered on philanthropic causes.[1] In 1821 he immigrated to the Florida Territory in the United States where he established a large agrarian refuge for Jews who were suffering under repression in Europe. Although the number of Jews fell far short of expectations, at least five Jewish families made their way to Levy's Pilgrimage Plantation—located in north central Florida—making this the first agrarian Jewish settlement in the United States (1822–1835).[1] The plantation was destroyed by fire during the onset of the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Levy, a slaveholder, was also unusual in his advocacy of the gradual emancipation of slaves. He wrote "A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery" while in London in 1828, achieving celebrity during the height of the antislavery campaign.[1][2][3] Levy was instrumental in leading a series of inter-religious debates in elite venues where he challenged Christians to end antisemitism.[4] Since Jews had never before entered the public sphere in England, and certainly never openly questioned the status quo, these public meetings created a furor in London. Widespread international press coverage referred to these protests as the "Extraordinary Movement of the Jews."[4] Levy was the father of U.S. Senator from Florida David Levy Yulee.[5]

  1. ^ a b c Monaco, C. S. (2005). Moses Levy of Florida Jewish Utopian and antebellum reformer. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0807130958. OCLC 799705796.
  2. ^ Monaco, C. S. (2007). "Moses Elias Levy," in Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 425–426. ISBN 978-0-313-33142-8.
  3. ^ Monaco, Chris (1998). "Moses E. Levy of Florida: A Jewish Abolitionist Abroad". American Jewish History. 86 (4): 377–396. doi:10.1353/ajh.1998.0029. ISSN 1086-3141. S2CID 162206934.
  4. ^ a b Monaco, C. S. (2013). The rise of modern Jewish politics : extraordinary movement. Routledge. ISBN 9780415659833. OCLC 798437915.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).