Billy Simmons
{{Short description|African-American Jewish scholar}}
{{infobox person
| name = Billy Simmons
| birth_date = {{circa}} 1780
| birth_place = Madagascar
| death_date = {{circa}} 1860 (aged {{circa}} 80)
| death_place = United States
| occupation = Scholar, newspaper deliverer
| spouse =
}}
Billy Simmons (also known as Billy Simons; {{Circa}} 1780 - {{Circa}} 1860) was an African-American Jew from Charleston, South Carolina, one of the few documented Black Jews living in the Antebellum South. Simmons was a scholar in both Hebrew and Arabic.{{cite web|url=http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/p/2005/history_cooperative/www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/seascapes/romain.html |title=The Jews of Nineteenth Century Charleston: Ethnicity in a Port City |publisher=University of Göttingen |accessdate=2022-05-06}}
Life
Simmons was born in Madagascar. Simmons claimed to be a descendant of a Rechabite tribe, a claim that two cantors and other Jewish authorities supported. Purchased by white Jewish enslavers, Simmons was taken into captivity and brought to South Carolina. A newspaper editor in Charleston enslaved him and forced him to deliver newspapers.{{cite web|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/black-jews-you-should-know-part-1 |title=Black Jews You Should Know, Part 1 |date=4 February 2016 |publisher=Tablet Magazine |accessdate=2022-05-06}}
Despite anti-Black restrictions in the constitution of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim that banned Black converts from membership, Simmons was among the few African-American Jews known to have attended the synagogue during the antebellum period.{{Cite book|last=O'Brien, Michael|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57759012|title=Conjectures of order: intellectual life and the American South, 1810-1860|date=2004|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=0-8078-6373-4|location=Chapel Hill|oclc=57759012}}{{Cite book|last=Haynes, Bruce D., 1960-|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1006531808|title=The soul of Judaism : Jews of African descent in America|date=August 14, 2018|isbn=978-1-4798-1123-6|location=New York|oclc=1006531808}} Simmons attended the synagogue during the 1850s and was known to members as Uncle Billy. Simmons was known to attend Shabbat services wearing a black top hat, black suit, and frilly shirt.{{cite web|url=https://jewishlibraries.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/AronsonText2016.pdf |title=Jews in Antebellum South Carolina |publisher=Association of Jewish Libraries |accessdate=2022-05-06}}
Legacy
A drawing of Billy Simmons is held by the Special Collections Library of the College of Charleston.{{cite web|url=https://schistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Carologue-Index-updated-October-2015.pdf |title=Carologue Index |publisher=Carologue |accessdate=2024-01-30}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA356353382&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=23250895&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E6dd10875&aty=open-web-entry African Americans, ambivalence, and antisemitism], Journal for the Study of Antisemitism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simmons, Billy}}
Category:19th-century American Sephardic Jews
Category:19th-century American slaves
Category:Immigrants to the United States
Category:African-American Jews
Category:American slaves literate in Arabic
Category:American Arabic-language writers
Category:Hebrew-language writers
Category:People from Charleston, South Carolina
Category:Jews from South Carolina