July 14 1785 – 7 Av 5545
Philadelphia
Journalist and diplomat Mordecai Manuel Noah was born. In 1819
Noah began campaigning for a Jewish homeland to be called
Ararat, which would accommodate persecuted Jewish masses. He
purchased a third of Grand Island in the Niagara River near
Buffalo, with an option on the rest, hoping to build enough high-
rises to accommodate six million refugees. At a kickoff ceremony
in a Buffalo church in 1825, Noah declared himself “a judge among
Israel.” Yet Jewish financiers and farmers ignored his pitch to
develop the island, and a decade later he began advocating for a
Jewish refuge in the land of Israel.
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