Andrew Porwancher. The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. xvii + 254 pp. (e-book), ISBN 978-0-691-21270-8; $23.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-691-21115-2.
Reviewed by Mara Cohen Ioannides (University of Missouri, Springfield)
Published on H-Early-America (September, 2022)
Commissioned by Patrick Luck (Florida Polytechnic University)
This review, originally published on Sept. 1, 2022, has been updated to include a response from the author.
Andrew Porwancher’s The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton sets out to prove that Alexander Hamilton was Jewish, a claim that many scholars believe has already been disproven. Without a doubt Porwancher has done excellent research, resting his argument on materials not only from other biographies of Hamilton, from Samuel M. Schmucher’s 1856 The Life and Times of Alexander Hamilton through Ron Chernow’s 2004 Alexander Hamilton, but also from numerous archives. His writing is fluid and elegant. However, his argument that Hamilton was Jewish is weak and ultimately unconvincing, and he does not present any evidence that other scholars have not already uncovered.
Porwancher begins with Hamilton’s mother, Rachel, as Judaism is passed from the mother. Rachel was raised and married on St. Croix. Porwancher’s argument that Hamilton was Jewish is based on the premise that Rachel converted to Judaism when she married Johan Levine, a man who was not Hamilton’s father nor with whom Hamilton had any positive contact. Porwancher bases the Jewishness of Levine on the statement of Hamilton’s grandson Allan McLane Hamilton, who was born forty-four years after Hamilton died, and the trope that all Jews were merchants in St. Croix and, thus, since Levine was a merchant, he must have been a Jew. This almost smacks of antisemitism. In St. Croix, not all merchants were Jews, nor were all Jews in St. Croix merchants. Therefore, we do not know with certainty that Levine was even Jewish.
Another weakness of Porwancher’s argument is that, even if Levine were Jewish, Rachel might well not have converted. While it was common for Jewish men in the colonies to marry non-Jews because of the rarity of Jewish women, it was rare for these women to convert to Judaism. Porwarcher’s claim that “there were certainly enough Jews on St. Croix to have convened for Rachel” a court and “the sole Talmudic obligation is immersion in a ritual bath” only shows that he does not understand the complexity of the process (p. 21). A big part of the process is a community that will not punish the person who converts for leaving Christianity; even today that is not always the case. In American Judaism, Jonathan D. Sarna states that there are twelve known conversions to Judaism for marriage between 1776 and 1840.[1] Thus, if Rachel had converted there should have been quite a stir in both the Jewish and Christian communities and yet there is no record of such an act. Another possibility that goes unexplored is that even if Levine were Jewish, the couple might not have cared about religion. As there is no marriage record, we do not know who performed the ceremony and, so, we cannot presume that it was a Jewish ceremony.
Porwancher’s next point is that Hamilton attended a Jewish school and that this is evidence of his Jewishness. However, many scholars have suggested that Hamilton attended the Jewish school on Nevis because his parents were not married—his mother lived with James Hamilton while still married to Levine. Porwancher’s logic, while somewhat persuasive, is still flawed: “We have no grounds for assuming that a church willing to baptize children despite their illegitimacy would at the same time refuse to educate those very children because of their illegitimacy” (p. 28). One can only counter that there is also no evidence that they would accept these children, nor are we assured that if bastards were accepted, that they were treated equally to legitimate children. The author continues by explaining that only Jews can learn Talmud or Torah, according to Jewish law. Porwancher cites Alexander’s claims to have known the Ten Commandments in Hebrew and to have been taught this by a woman, as another basis for this argument for Hamilton being Jewish. However, women did not and do not teach Talmud or conduct Torah study. They can teach reading and writing in Hebrew, basic Bible stories, etc. These basics can be taught to non-Jews according to Jewish law and such teaching is even encouraged by some rabbinical sources. Again, Porwancher’s weak understanding of Jewish law is shown here. Therefore this is not evidence that Hamilton attended a school intended to teach Jewish texts. In addition, knowing Hebrew, Latin, and Greek were marks of an educated man at the time. One could say that Rachel Levine had plans for her son and educated him to fit those plans. The author even mentions, though in a later chapter, that educated Christians were very interested in reading the Hebrew Bible in its original.
Porwancher skips over much about James Hamilton, Alexander’s father. I think this man would have had much to do with Hamilton’s religious experience. The elder Hamilton was a Scot, so he could have been a member of the Church of Scotland, the Episcopalian Church of Scotland, the Baptist faith, or even the Congregationalist church. This could provide a reason for why Hamilton was not baptized as an Anglican.
The latter half of the book is about Hamilton’s relationship with the American Jewish community. That he was not antisemitic, either purposefully or because of the social norms of the day, should not be surprising. He went to a Jewish school; he had a greater understanding of Judaism than most of his peers. Additionally, as a lawyer and founder of the new nation, that he had connections with the leading Jews of the period is not unusual.
In this book Porwancher attempts to prove that Hamilton was Jewish. He fails to do so. Instead, he over-reads weak evidence in service of a provocative but ultimately unconvincing thesis.
Note
[1]. Johanthan D. Sarna, American Judaism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 45.
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Author Response
Scholars of good faith can disagree about how to interpret historical evidence. Indeed, such difference of opinion is the lifeblood of a healthy discipline. But only when academic debate is premised on intellectual honesty can it advance the collective search for truth. That kind of honesty requires, at the very least, a commitment to represent another’s claims with accuracy. While no reviewer is obliged to agree with a book’s conclusions, no reviewer is entitled to misrepresent them.
Mara Cohen Ioannides’s review of my book—The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton—engages in a repeated pattern of distortion. I do not make this claim lightly. Normally, I would not publish a response to a book review, however uncharitable that review might be. But Cohen Ioannides’s habitual misrepresentation of my book necessitates a plain statement of fact to correct the record.
Cohen Ioannides routinely attributes levels of certainty to my claims that, in reality, I expressly and regularly disavow in the pages of my book. She writes of my central argument, for instance, “In this book Porwancher attempts to prove that Hamilton was Jewish. He fails to do so.” Contrary to her allegation here, my book never attempts to “prove” his Jewish identity. Any bid to prove that Hamilton was Jewish would be ill-fated, as the evidence in the historical record is too incomplete to support such a sweeping assertion. My argument, instead, is far more modest—and thus far more defensible. From the book’s very first paragraph, I emphasize the probabilistic nature of my claim about Hamilton: “he was probably born and raised a Jew.” (1) The introduction repeats this kind of language many times. In the second paragraph of the book, for example, I reiterate that his Jewish identity is a question of likelihood rather than certainty: “Hamilton, in all likelihood, grew up as a member of the Jewish people.” (1) A few pages later, I hedge yet again: “Alexander Hamilton probably had a Jewish past.” (4) The very next page similarly refers to “the likelihood that he had a Jewish identity.” (5)
My introduction then offers this full-throated admission of epistemic humility: “Hurricanes and fires have degraded the historical record. Many of the documents that do survive have been partially eaten by termites. We are left with remnants of individual lives, scraps of evidence that must be read within the context of what is known about the region and era. A great deal of what might be said about most aspects of Hamilton’s upbringing and kin are matters of probabilities rather than certainties. The case for his Jewish identity is no different.” (5) These numerous examples—drawn only from the book’s first five pages—give a fair indication of the volume writ large. Throughout the monograph, I offer similar qualifiers in every discussion of Hamilton’s religious background.
Cohen Ioannides may insist that I have failed in my effort to “prove” his Jewishness, but basic standards of intellectual honesty should have required her to be truthful with readers that I make no pretenses to prove anything of the sort. By projecting an absolutist quality onto my central claim, she imposes on the book an impossible hurdle that I never tried to clear, and then she faults me for failing to clear it. The crucial distinction between proving a claim, which requires 100% certainty, and suggesting its mere likelihood, which requires only 51%, is no small matter—especially with respect to Hamilton’s religious identity. It is the difference between my having produced an indefensible book deserving of Cohen Ioannides’s scorn and a sound one.
Unfortunately, other elements in her review follow this same pattern of misrepresentation. Consider her treatment of Johan Levine, Hamilton’s stepfather who, I argue, was probably Jewish. There are several pieces of evidence that point to the likelihood of his Jewishness, including his work as a merchant, a profession of many contemporary Caribbean Jews. On this score, Cohen Ioannides once again attributes a categorical quality to my book that, in actually, can be found nowhere in my text. In her words, my evidence for Levine’s Jewishness relies on “the trope that all Jews were merchants in St. Croix and, thus, since Levine was a merchant, he must have been a Jew.” Of course, the sweeping and unsupportable claim that all Jews were merchants withers under Cohen Ioannides’s scrutiny. She writes, “In St. Croix, not all merchants were Jews, nor were all Jews in St. Croix merchants. Therefore, we do not know with certainty that Levine was even Jewish.” Contrary to her assertion, I never state that all Jews were merchants on St. Croix. Here is my actual claim in the book about Levine’s occupation: “Levine worked as a merchant, a common Jewish profession.” (17) And I never argue that he “must” have been Jewish. Rather, I write that the evidence for his Jewishness is suggestive, not definitive: “Although numerous scholars assume he was not Jewish, considerable evidence suggests otherwise.” (3) Again, it is no mere triviality that Cohen Ioannides disregards a measured claim in the book that is consistent with the evidence and instead imputes to me an unconditional claim that is all too easy for her to criticize.
A number of Cohen Ioannides’s other statements are also demonstrably false. She alleges, for instance, that no new documents appear in my book: “he does not present any evidence that other scholars have not already uncovered.” In fact, in the course of a single endnote, I rely on more than ninety primary sources from the Danish Caribbean archives never before cited in Hamilton scholarship (201n42), to say nothing of my other one thousand endnotes. She also erroneously declares that “women did not and do not teach Talmud or conduct Torah study.” This sweeping pronouncement is unmoored from the reality that countless female rabbis today indeed teach Talmud and conduct Torah study.
Most alarmingly, Cohen Ioannides suggests that my book in effect promotes antisemitic stereotyping. With reference to my claim that Levine’s trade as a merchant could indicate a Jewish identity, she writes, “This almost smacks of antisemitism.” My book’s acknowledgment of the commonplace truism that many Jews in history were merchants is hardly an exercise in antisemitism, especially when I couple that observation with my qualifier that Jews often became merchants as a consequence of antisemitism. As I write in the book, “Barred by law from many professions, they often assumed the role of cultural intermediaries who served as tradesmen between societies.” (13) Elsewhere in the book, I note that many Jewish merchants enjoyed success thanks to their trustworthiness in the face of bigotry: “The stubborn stereotype of the deceitful merchant was not without irony. In reality, Jews in New York and elsewhere achieved prosperity in large part because they could depend on the integrity of their fellow Jews. They cultivated an ethos of collective support among themselves in reaction to the discrimination that they encountered as a group.” (57) In light of my foregoing statements, it is indefensible for Cohen Ioannides to peddle the rather grave accusation that I am trafficking in antisemitic tropes. In fact, I have been subjected to antisemitic harassment precisely because my book pushes back against antisemitism. The bigots who have filled my inbox with graphic hate mail hardly view my book as sympathetic to their cause.
If my book’s argument were actually as “weak” as Cohen Ioannides insists, she would not need to rely on repeated distortions to debunk it. To be sure, book reviewers deserve a presumption of good faith. But we do a disservice to our profession when we cling to that presumption blindly and allow a continuous pattern of misrepresentation to masquerade as legitimate scholarly disagreement.
--Andrew Porwancher, Wick Cary Professor, Constitutional Studies, University of Oklahoma
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Citation:
Mara Cohen Ioannides. Review of Porwancher, Andrew, The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton.
H-Early-America, H-Net Reviews.
September, 2022.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=58207
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