List of Jewish political milestones in the United States

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 elected official in the United States: Judah Hays; as the Fire Commissioner of the Boston Fire Department (1805)^[3]
  • Francis Salvador was elected prior to the formation of the United States.
• First Jewish member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Lewis Charles Levin (1845)^[4]
• First Jewish member of the U.S. Senate: David Levy Yulee (1845)^[5]
• 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)^[6]
• First Jewish U.S. Cabinet member (Secretary of Commerce and Labor): Oscar Straus (1906)^[7]
  • Not including Judah P. Benjamin, who served in the Confederate Cabinet as Secretary of State and Secretary of War.^[8]
• First Jewish Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Louis Brandeis (1916)^[9]
  • President Millard Fillmore offered to appoint Judah P. Benjamin to the Supreme Court in 1853, but Benjamin declined.^[8]
• First Jewish female member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Florence Prag Kahn (1925)^[10]
• First Jewish Secretary of the Treasury: Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1934)^[11]
• 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)^[12][13]
• First person of Sephardic Jewish ancestry to run for President of the United States: Louis Abolafia (1968)^[14]
• First Jewish candidate to receive an electoral vote for Vice President: Tonie Nathan of the Libertarian Party, from a faithless elector (1972)^[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 Secretary of Defense: Harold Brown (1977)^[20]
• First Jewish female governor of a U.S. state (Vermont): Madeleine M. Kunin (1985)^[21]
• First Jewish openly gay member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Barney Frank (took office 1981, disclosed homosexuality 1989)^[22]
  • Jared Polis became the first Jewish Congressman to be openly gay upon first election: (2009)^[23]
• 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)^[24]
• First independent Jewish member of the U.S. Congress (U.S. House of Representatives): Bernie Sanders (1991)^[25]
• First Jewish female members of the U.S. Senate: Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (1993)^[26]
• First Jewish female Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993)^[27]
• First female Cabinet-level official: Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. Trade Representative (1997)^[28]
• 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)^[29]
• First Jewish U.S. House whip: Eric Cantor (2009) (also first Jewish whip in either chamber of Congress)^[30]
• First Jewish U.S. House floor leader: Eric Cantor (2011)(also first Jewish floor leader and majority leader in either chamber of Congress)^[30]
• First Jewish female U.S. Cabinet member in the Presidential Line of Succession (Secretary of Commerce): Penny Pritzker (2013)^[31]
• First Jewish American to win a presidential primary (New Hampshire) and delegates: Bernie Sanders (2016)^{[32][33][34][35]} (Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, was the first winner of Jewish heritage, but was a Christian).^[36]
• First Jewish American to receive an electoral vote for President: Bernie Sanders, from a faithless elector (2016)^[37] (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)^[38]
• 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