Moses Mordecai

Moses became one of the original three hundred Jewish families in the United States (and one of the few of Ashkenazic descent). He was "a Jew of strict integrity and well respected by the community." Moses was naturalized in Philadelphia on Sep 23, 1764. He was a merchant, and peddled his wares from New York to Philadelphia to Richmond, all the while maintaining his Jewish heritage.

His eldest son, Jacob, became one of the foremost American Jewish scholars of his day.

In Philadelphia, Elfreth's Alley, the oldest continuously occupied residential street in America, was home to Colonial and Federal-era Jews. Moses and his family lived there in house #118 in 1769. It is located between Arch and Race, Front and Second Streets. Moses was a merchant signatory of the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765 by which the merchants refused to import goods until the repeal of the Stamp Act. Nine Jews signed the Resolutions, the adoption of which was the first organized movement in the agitation which eleven years later gave this country its independence from England. The original document in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, bears the following names on the first roll of American Patriots: Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, Joseph Jacobs, Hyman Levy, Jr., David Franks, Mathias Bush, Michael Gratz, Barnard Gratz and MOSES MORDECAI.

Sources: First Jewish Families: Americans Of Jewish Descent, American Jewish Archives, Hebrew College, Cincinnati, OH.

Mordicai: An Early American Family by Emily Bingham

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=17200311&ref=wvr

Profile photo: Find A Grave; posted by Ruby Mordecai

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Additional note added 2/20/2013, by LorettaAlexandra M268111, Moses Mordecai's fifth great granddaughter:

Moses Mordecai, at age 51, arrived as an indentured servant, sent to America by the British to work off a sentence.