The Jewish Refuge That Never Was

We are used to taking history for granted: this happened after that and that’s how we got to where we are now. It’s easy to forget that during the long years of the Jewish diaspora, before the return to the Land of Israel became a realistic possibility, there were Jewish thinkers – or in this case, Jewish movers and shakers – who thought of other possible solutions to what became known – in the wake of the rising political nationalism – as “the Jewish question”. We all heard of the Uganda Scheme, but there were ideas thrown around that were even more far-fetched than creating a Jewish homeland in British East Africa. And while bizarre and improbable, some they were also quite appealing.

One of these ideas belonged to a Jewish American visionary named Mordecai Manuel Noah. Born in the late XVII century in Philadelphia, Noah was quite the Renaissance man. His resume included considerable professional success in a variety of fields, such as diplomacy, politics and journalism. Among other things, he wrote plays, was elected sheriff of New York City, and served as editor of six different New York newspapers. To this day he is remembered as the first Jew born in the United States to reach national prominence.

Judge of Israel

Noah, who travelled through Europe as part of his diplomatic career and saw the suffering of Jews there, felt that the Jewish people need a homeland. As sort of a forefather to Zionism, he believed that it should be in their ancient dwelling – the Land of Israel – and, like other Zionists, he did not think that Jews needed to wait for the Messiah. He believed that furthering the messianic idea required human involvement.

However, he thought that Jews were not yet ready to return to the Land of Israel and self-govern there. An intermediate location, where they would gather and establish themselves as a nation, would be necessary. Naturally, he set out to create a Jewish colony on a small island between Buffalo, NY, and Canada. Where else?
Noah planned to call this place Ararat – named after the mountain where Noah’s Ark rested after the biblical flood, even though the original Ararat is actually located in Turkey and not in upstate New York. Noah envisioned Ararat as a temporary refuge for Jews from all over the world, until they would be able to return to their ancient homeland.

The exact location Noah chose was Grand Island, an island on the Niagara River which the state of New York purchased from the Native Americans a decade prior. Noah bought some land on Grand Island and used his political power to establish Ararat as a city of refuge for Jews in 1825, in the fiftieth year of American independence. He even held a ceremony which included the singing of the psalms in Hebrew. The highlight of the event was laying a cornerstone – engraved in both English and Hebrew.

All of this actually took place in a church in the nearby city of Buffalo, which Noah rented for the historical event, and not on Grand Island itself which was still completely undeveloped and by no means a place to hold an official ceremony. History has it that Noah led the ceremony dressed in full regalia of an English medieval monarch – a Richard III costume he lent from a theater – and proclaimed himself “Judge of Israel”.

No one came

Mordecai Manuel Noah‘s plan was that Jews all over the world would pay a tax to help finance their northern refuge and that eventually Jews from the US, as well as Europe, will come to settle in Ararat. It could have been nice, except that no one came.

Noah’s over-the-top look and pretentious statements didn’t go down that well. Many ridiculed his grandiose messianic ambitions and even claimed that he was a fraud and just your average land speculator, trying to raise funds from his fellow Jews. After all, this was the XIX century US and it was a common investment at the time to buy cheap land in the hope of making a profit later on.

Whatever his intensions were, he failed to get any Jews on board and quickly abandoned his plans. However, even after the Ararat dream proved a failure, Noah didn’t abandon the idea that Jews must establish a homeland, and this time he advocated for Palestine to be the destination – with no stopover.

Main Photo: Illustration of the site's marker\ Wikipedia

For more about Mordecai Manuel Noah, see Beit Avi Chai’s online series “The Kabbalistic Birth Pangs of Zionism” with Dr. Jonnie Schnytzer, starting Sunday February 2 at 7pm (12pm EST), in English.