Born in Philadelphia in 1792, Uriah Phillips Levy was a fifth-generation American who, according to family stories, went to sea at age ten and returned to celebrate his bar mitzvah at Congregation Mikveh Israel in 1805. He served with distinction in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812 and became the first Jewish U.S. Navy commodore, a rank equivalent to admiral today. During a fifty-year naval career, he was court-martialed six times and killed a man in a duel, incidents tied to rampant anti-Semitism. He was dismissed twice from the U.S. Navy but reinstated by Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler, later commanded the Mediterranean Fleet, and was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to head the Navy Court Martial Board during the Civil War. He helped repeal the flogging of sailors, making the U.S. Navy the first military organization in the world to abolish physical punishment. He also deeply admired President Thomas Jefferson and the Bill of Rights, commissioned a statue of Jefferson in 1832 that stands in the U.S. Capitol, and purchased Monticello in 1834, repairing, restoring, and preserving it for future generations. He is buried at Beth Olom Cemetery in Queens, New York.
