Can You Handle One More Theory?

[L Verge]

Back to Simon Wolf as mentioned in my first post: There really was a lawyer in DC by that name - moved to the capital city in 1862 and became well-known in the B'nai B'rith as well as some political roles. He was born in Bavaria in 1836, so he would have been in the same age range as JWB.

One thing that I failed to note in the first post was that he supposedly looked like Booth. His photo shown here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wolf was taken at a much later date, so there is a problem trying to make the comparison. Considering how influential he became after the CW, however, it is difficult for me to see how our conspiracy theorists can insert him into the Lincoln assassination story.

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I'm on a roll!! Here's a little more about Mr. Wolf (note how he came to know Mr. Lincoln):

In 1862, lawyer Simon Wolf left Cleveland for Washington. An active member of both Washington Hebrew Congregation and B’nai B’rith, Wolf was an eloquent orator and influential leader. He formed close relationships with every U.S. president from Abraham Lincoln to Woodrow Wilson.

A White House Visit

Early in the war, Wolf learned that a Jewish soldier was to be executed the next morning for having deserted his unit to travel to his mother’s deathbed. Wolf went to Lincoln at 2 a.m. to plead for the soldier’s life. He said, “If your dying mother had summoned you to her bedside to receive her last message . . . would you have been a deserter to her who gave you birth, rather than deserter in law but not in fact to the flag to which you had sworn allegiance?”

Lincoln pardoned the soldier and his secretary, John Hay, immediately telegraphed the stay of execution.

Arrested for Defending Others

During the war, Wolf was detained for serving as attorney for Southern Jews charged with espionage and for his membership in B’nai B’rith. Accusing Wolf of being a traitor, Colonel Lafayette C. Baker of the War Department threatened him with imprisonment and called B’nai B’rith “a disloyal organization, which…is helping the traitors.”

When Secretary of War Edwin Stanton learned of the situation, he called it an outrage and promptly had Wolf released.

Mr. Wolf, you have done your duty and I know that you are a loyal citizen.

- Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (as quoted in Presidents I Have Known)

Setting the Record Straight

My primary purpose has been to prove that the Jewish people . . . have been unfailing in their devotion to their country’s cause.

- Simon Wolf, The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier, and Citizen

In 1895, in response to charges that Jews had evaded military service, Wolf published a comprehensive review of Jewish service in the American military. The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen lists more than 8,000 Jewish soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Wolf concluded that “the enlistment of Jewish soldiers, north and south, reached proportions considerably in excess of their ratio to the general population.”

After the War: An Elder Statesman

After the war, Wolf held numerous local and national leadership positions.

President Ulysses S. Grant named him Recorder of Deeds, making him one of the first Jews to hold public office in Washington. He also served as president of Washington Hebrew Congregation in the 1870s. In 1881, President Garfield appointed him Consul General to Egypt.

As chairman of the Board of Delegates of Civil and Religious Rights and president of the International Order of B’nai B’rith, Wolf was an outspoken advocate on national and international Jewish issues. In 1869, he appealed to President Grant urging the United States to protest the expulsion of thousands [30,000] of Russian Jews from their homes. In 1903, he helped organize a national petition protesting the Russian government’s actions in the Kishinev massacre.

Source is from the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington. Also mentioned as members of the D.C. Jewish community who had the ear of President Lincoln are: With Franklin Philp, Adolphus Solomons ran a successful bookstore at 332 Pennsylvania Avenue. Widely respected by both President Lincoln and the Jewish community, he frequently served as a link between them. Philp and Solomons were also publishers for the famous photographer Alexander Gardner.

After the Civil War, Solomons served in the Washington, D.C. House of Delegates and on the Presidential Inauguration Committee for Ulysses S. Grant. In 1881, Solomons helped Clara Barton found the American Red Cross. [Note that he is seldom mentioned in the founding of the American Red Cross.]

When the Volunteer Act of 1861 mandated that only Christians could be military chaplains, the Board of Delegates of American Israelites sent Rabbi Arnold Fischel to Washington to lobby for change. Using Solomons’s bookstore as his headquarters, Fischel succeeded when Lincoln signed a law on July 17, 1862, for the first time permitting rabbis to become chaplains.

One last comment on the Jewish community in D.C. - Don't forget that Isachar Zacharie, Lincoln's foot doctor that we have mentioned on this forum, was also Jewish.