Benjamin F. Jonas

Benjamin Franklin Jonas (July 19, 1834 – December 21, 1911) was an American politician who was a Democratic U.S. senator from Louisiana and an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He was the third Jew to serve in the Senate. Jonas was also the last Jewish senator from the Deep South until Jon Ossoff won his seat in Georgia in 2021.

Life and career He was born in Williamsport, Grant County, Kentucky, to Abraham Jonas (1801–1864), a merchant and lawyer, and Louisa Block. As a boy, he moved with his parents to Quincy, Illinois, where his father became a Republican state legislator and postmaster, and was acquainted with Abraham Lincoln. (In 1864, Lincoln appointed the widowed Mrs. Jonas postmaster in succession to her late husband.)

Benjamin attended the public schools in Quincy. In 1853, he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana; his maternal uncle, Abraham Block, was well known there, being an important figure in the nearby Red River settlements. He studied law at the University of Louisiana (now Tulane University). In 1855, he graduated, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in New Orleans.

Despite his family's strong Republican connections, Benjamin Jonas cast his lot with the South in the Civil War. In 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate States Army. He was a member of Fenner's Battery, and adjutant of a battalion of artillery in Hood's Corps in the Army of Tennessee. Jonas was the first practicing Jew in the Senate. Jonas was also the first Ashkenazi Jew in the Senate; while the two previous Jewish senators were of Sephardic descent, as were the majority of U.S. Jews at the time. He was a member of The Boston Club of New Orleans.