Alexander Hamilton—of ten-dollar bill fame—was born on the Caribbean-island of St. Croix, in the English Colony of Nevis. The island supported an important Sephardic Jewish community. These Sephardim (Spanish Jews) were merchants working in the sugar industry, they established a synagogue and Jewish cemetery on the island. Researchers and historians are still searching for the remains of the Jewish school where Alexander Hamilton recalled learning to recite the ten commandments in Hebrew, an ability he retained into adulthood. Hamilton is remembered as a devout follower of Christ until the very moment of death (at the hands of a sitting US vice president). This makes the reality of his Jewish education quite confusing to most.
Hamilton was born in about 1755; his mother had been married to a Danish trader named Johann Michael Lavien. It appears that—the Christian-born—Rachel Faucette may have converted to Judaism before her marriage to Lavien. The marriage was tumultuous. When it ended, Rachel (Faucette) Lavien would have been legally Jewish, explaining why she was never legally married to Hamilton’s father, the Scotsman, James Hamilton. While other children of that time born out of wedlock were permitted to attend the island’s Catholic school, Alexander and his brother attended the Jewish school. Alexander Hamilton’s child hood home was a short walk through the Jewish quarter from the school. Hamilton was a brilliant child. While still a teenager, he began learning under a Presbyterian minister named Hugh Knox who read a piece Hamilton had written about the devastation of a storm; he published the piece in the Royal Danish American Gazette and crowdfunded the expense of sending Hamilton to King’s College (Colombia) which was then located in New Jersey.
Hamilton was a devout Christian but never forgot his connection to the Jewish people. He advocated for the inclusion of Jews in the governance of the university as well as the republic. Those interested to know more are encouraged to check out The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, by Andrew Porwancher.
The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton | Princeton University Press