David L. Lopez

David L. Lopez (1809-1884) was a builder, industrialist, slave owner, philanthropist, and defender of the Confederacy who lived in Charleston, South Carolina.

He constructed numerous significant buildings in Charleston, including the second Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue (1839–1841), which was the first synagogue in the Americas built by a practicing Jew.

He used enslaved workers, both as manual laborers and as skilled craftsmen, and owned fourteen enslaved people by 1860. In 1864, he advertised a $200 reward for the return of an enslaved carpenter named Jim, whom he claimed to have raised himself.

Lopez served as the first president of the Hebrew Orphan Society of Charleston, the oldest continually existing incorporated Jewish charity in the United States.