The eldest of 14 children and first-born son of Samuel Judah andJessie Jonas, Benjamin S. Judah was born into a life ofresponsibility. His distinguished New York Ashkenazi family stemmedfrom the paternal grandfather, Baruch Judah, an immigrant fromBreslau who had been one of the founders of Congregation ShearithIsrael’s Beaver Street synagogue in 1728.

Judah wore his responsibilities well, establishing himself early in asuccessful career as a merchant. At age 26, in 1786, he was a founderof the New York Tontine. A decade later, he was in London, where hespent several years establishing important connections on thecontinent for transatlantic trade. Nevertheless, he would suffer asignificant reversal of fortune during the war of 1812.

During the Revolution, Judah allied himself with the Patriot cause,removing from occupied New York to Philadelphia, where he joinedCongregation Mikve Israel. Upon his return to New York at the end ofthe war, he played important roles in the governance of CongregationShearith Israel and in public life. In 1789 he was among thesignatories of a petition to the New York state legislature to haveVermont admitted to the union as an independent state.

Judah regarded himself as a proud American throughout his life. Whentensions rose between the United States and France in 1798, while hewas living in London, he wrote to Alexander Hamilton to volunteer hisservices for the purpose of acquiring arms to assist his country “todefend her claims against an insidious foe.” “Every American,”he wrote to Hamilton, “must feel the ardour of aiding his countryto justify her rights.”

Judah married late in life to eighteen-year-old Eliza Israel, thedaughter of a London contact, in 1803. Although his bout withfatherhood began when he was 44, Judah pursued it just as avidly ashe had commerce and politics. He ultimately fathered ten childrenover the next twenty-four years, including playwright SamuelBenjamin Helbert Judah. When he died, at age seventy-one, hisyoungest child, George, was only three years old.