The following is a list of Jewish political milestones in the United States.

• First Jewish member of a colonial legislature ( South Carolina): Francis Salvador (1775) ^[1]
• First Jewish soldier killed in the American Revolutionary War: Francis Salvador (1776) ^[2]
• First Jewish member of the U.S. Congress ( U.S. House of Representatives): Lewis Charles Levin (1845) ^[3]
• First Jewish member of the U.S. Senate: David Levy Yulee (1845) ^[4]
• First Jewish mayor of a major American city ( Portland, Oregon): Bernard Goldsmith (1869)
  • Two years later, Philip Wasserman succeeded him as mayor.
• First Jewish governor of a U.S. state ( California): Washington Bartlett (1887) ^[5]
• First Jewish U.S. Cabinet member ( Secretary of Commerce and Labor): Oscar Straus (1906) ^[6]
  • Not including Judah P. Benjamin, who served in the Confederate Cabinet as Secretary of State and Secretary of War. ^[7]
• First Jewish Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Louis Brandeis (1916) ^[8]
  • President Millard Fillmore offered to appoint Judah P. Benjamin to the Supreme Court in 1853, but Benjamin declined. ^[7]
• First Jewish female member of the U.S. Congress ( U.S. House of Representatives): Florence Prag Kahn (1925) ^[9]
• First Jewish Secretary of the Treasury: Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1934) ^[10]
• First person of Jewish ancestry to run for President of the United States on a major party ticket: Barry Goldwater (1964) (Goldwater's father was Jewish; Goldwater was raised Episcopalian) ^{[11] [12]}
• First person of Sephardic Jewish ancestry to run for President of the United States: Louis Abolafia (1968) ^[13]
• First Jewish candidate to receive an electoral vote for Vice President: Tonie Nathan of the Libertarian Party, from a faithless elector (1972) ^[14]
• First Jewish Secretary of Defense: James R. Schlesinger (1973) ^[15]
• First Jewish Secretary of State: Henry Kissinger (1973) ^[16]
• First Jewish Mayor of New York City: Abraham Beame (1974), ( Fiorello LaGuardia, who was mayor from 1934 to 1946, was born to an Italian Jewish mother from Trieste and a lapsed Catholic turned atheist father from Apulia; however, he was a Protestant) ^[17]
• First Jewish Attorney General: Edward H. Levi (1975) ^[18]
• First Jewish female mayor of a major American city ( Dallas): Adlene Harrison (1976) ^[19]
• First Jewish female governor of a U.S. state ( Vermont): Madeleine M. Kunin (1985) ^[20]
• First Jewish openly gay member of the U.S. Congress ( U.S. House of Representatives): Barney Frank (took office 1981, disclosed homosexuality 1989) ^[21]
  • Jared Polis became the first Jewish Congressman to be openly gay upon first election: (2009) ^[22]
• First U.S. Senate election in which both major party candidates were Jewish: 1990 Minnesota U.S. Senate Election; with Paul Wellstone defeated Rudy Boschwitz (1990) ^[23]
• First independent Jewish member of the U.S. Congress ( U.S. House of Representatives): Bernie Sanders (1991) ^[24]
• First Jewish female members of the U.S. Senate: Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (1993) ^[25]
• First Jewish female Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993) ^[26]
• First Jewish female U.S. Cabinet member ( Secretary of State): Madeleine Albright (1997) (also first woman Secretary of State) ^{[27] [28] [29] [30]}
  • Four years earlier, Albright became first Jewish female with U.S. Cabinet-rank status ( U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations).
• First Jewish nominee for Vice President of the United States on a major party ticket, and first Jewish candidate to receive an electoral vote, excluding faithless electors: Joe Lieberman (2000) ^[31]
• First Jewish U.S. House whip: Eric Cantor (2009) (also first Jewish whip in either chamber of Congress) ^[32]
• First Jewish U.S. House floor leader: Eric Cantor (2011) (also first Jewish floor leader and majority leader in either chamber of Congress) ^[32]
• First Jewish American to win a presidential primary (New Hampshire): Bernie Sanders (2016) ^{[33] [34] [35] [36]} ( Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, was the first winner of Jewish heritage, but was a Christian). ^[37]
• First Jewish American to receive an electoral vote for President: Bernie Sanders, from a faithless elector (2016) ^[38] (Barry Goldwater was the first of Jewish heritage, in 1964, but was not Jewish)
• First Jewish U.S. Senate floor leader: Chuck Schumer (2017) (also first Jewish minority leader in either chamber of Congress) ^[39]
• First Jewish Second Gentleman (and first Jewish American spouse of Vice President): Douglas Emhoff (2021)
• First Jewish U.S. Senate majority leader: Chuck Schumer (2021)
• First Jewish female (and the first woman) Secretary of the Treasury: Janet Yellen (2021)

See also

• List of Jewish American politicians

References