(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

David Levy Yulee (1810-86) was instrumental in securing Florida’s admission to the union as a state in 1845. That same year he was elected to the United States, becoming the first Jew to serve in that body. In 1851 he lost a re-election bid to Stephen R. Mallory in a bitterly contested race. Unwilling to give up, he contested Mallory’s right to the seat and documents pertaining to his case were published as Contested Election of the Senator from the State of Florida. Levy’s appeal was unsuccessful, but he was later re-elected in 1855. A staunch Southern rights activist, he resigned from the Senate in 1861 when Florida seceded from the Union. Among Levy’s positions in the Senate was that of chairman of the Committee on Post offices and post roads. Reports pertaining to his activities on the Committee were printed as government publications in In the Senate of the United States. See Leon Hühner, “David L. Yulee, Florida’s First Senator,” Proceedings of the American Jewish Historical Society 25 (1917) pp. 1-29.