Broadside attacking Mordecai M. Noah signed “F.L. Macculloch.”

Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851) was probably the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th century. A newspaper publisher, playright, and politician, Noah served at various times in his colorful career as American consul at Tunis and as High Sheriff of New York. Noah was active in Jewish communal affairs in his hometown of Philadelphia’s Congregation Mikveh Israel and later in New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel. A firm believer in the cause of Jewish territorial independence, in 1825 Noah launched a scheme to establish a semi-autonomous Jewish colony he dubbed “Ararat” on Grand Island in the Niagara River near Buffalo. The attempt–which received wide publicity—was a dismal failure and Noah’s pretensions as ruler were ridiculed in the press. Thereafter Noah focused on Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel. See EJ, XII, cols. 1198-9 and L. M. Friedman, Pilgrims in a New Land (1948) pp. 240-7 The author of the broadside lampoons “Mordecai Manassah (sic) Noah the self appointed Governor and Judge in Israel.” The allusion to the recent fiasco of the Ararat experiment is transparent enough