On Oct. 6, 2013, Israel鈥檚 Haaretz newspaper ran an article titled 鈥淕rave of the ‘First American Consul’ in Jerusalem Uncovered.鈥�
Why the quotation marks around the individual in question鈥檚 title?
Well, as the piece about the discovery in Jerusalem鈥檚 Mount of Olives cemetery detailed, 鈥淲arder Cresson, one of the most colorful figures of 19th-century Jerusalem, was the first American consul in Jerusalem 鈥� at least, he acted as though he was.鈥�
Cresson led a quirky life, to say the least. His story is worth revisiting, touching as it does so many timely topics related to today鈥檚 discussions of Jews, Christians, America and Israel nearly two centuries after Cresson鈥檚 death.
Born in 1798 to a Philadelphian Quaker family, Cresson married Elizabeth Townsend while in his 20s. Through farming he became an affluent and respected member of the local Philadelphian Quaker society. In 1827, the Great Separation arose amongst the Quakers, which divided into Hicksites and Orthodox Quakers. Cresson, 29 at the time, became a Hicksite.听
As Michael Medved details in a 2019 article in 海角乱伦, as Cresson approached the age of 30, 鈥渞eligious doubts began to torment him, and he published outspokenly radical religious tracts (including ‘Babylon the Great Is Falling!’) that questioned his Quaker faith, challenging its perceived emphasis on 鈥榓n outward form, order of discipline鈥� without proper attention to the 鈥榠nward man.鈥� Cresson formally rejected the Society of Friends and affiliated himself with a series of unconventional sects that had arisen during America鈥檚 second 鈥楪reat Awakening,鈥� including, in turn, the Shakers, the Mormons, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the 鈥楥amp-bellites,鈥� who believed in restoring the united, purified Christianity of the apostles.鈥�
In 1840, Cresson befriended Isaac Leeser, the rabbi of Philadelphia鈥檚 Mikveh Israel congregation, and found himself interested in Judaism. Leeser introduced Cresson to Mordecai Manuel Noah, who, 15 years after his failed attempt to build a temporary homeland in upstate New York for the global Jewish community, had now set his sights on revitalizing Jewish life in the Holy Land.
Cresson concluded that 鈥渢here is no salvation for the Gentiles but by coming to Israel鈥� and that God had created America to save the Jews of the world from oppression. The American eagle, in his view, was a reflection of the vision of the Jewish prophet Isaiah, who had prophesied that, for the tired and troubled, 鈥渢he Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles.鈥� The soaring power of America, Cresson believed, would 鈥渙vershadow the land with his wings,鈥� allowing Israel to be born again.
So an excited Cresson, having spent years in a Christian milieu that anticipated the return of the Messiah to his home country, petitioned President John Tyler鈥檚 Secretary of State John Calhoun to send him to Jerusalem in the official capacity of America鈥檚 first Consul. While the ancient city, under Ottoman control, hardly merited an American appointee to liaise with its meager population, the request was accepted. It helped, to be sure, that the wealthy Cresson offered to take on the role without pay.
In the late spring of 1844, he left his wife and six children and boarded a ship to the Middle East. In London, where he stopped on the way, Cresson published a short tract “Jerusalem, the Centre and Joy of the Whole Earth” in which he explained how:
“I might have still remained at home in my ceiled house, with a beloved and virtuous wife and lovely family. Great and precious were the many privileges that I enjoyed there, and I feel most sensibly the deprivation of them; but the light and conviction of God鈥檚 precious promises, in reference to the return of the Jews and the setting up of his everlasting kingdom at Mount Zion and Jerusalem, became so great, taken in connection with the signs of the times, that I could no longer remain at home; therefore I have forsaken houses, brethren, sisters, mother, wife, children and lands for the kingdom of God鈥檚 sake.”
Alas, though Cresson triumphantly and flamboyantly descended from the docked boat in Jaffa holding an American flag in one hand and a caged dove (presumably symbolizing peace) in the other, he was fired before he made it to Jerusalem.
Samuel Ingham, who had served as Andrew Jackson鈥檚 Secretary of the Treasury, had written to Calhoun arguing that Cresson鈥檚 appointment was an embarrassment to the United States. Cresson鈥檚 track record, after all, was that of a 鈥渨eak minded man鈥� who 鈥渉as a passion for religious controversy.鈥�
Cresson鈥檚 response to hearing the news was simply to ignore it. He declared himself the U.S. Consul anyway. The locals didn鈥檛 seem to mind.
In his imagined capacity, he hosted the British novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, telling the renowned writer that the United States would work closely with England to encourage other European nations to establish a renewed homeland for the Jews.
Taking a spiritual likening to the Jewish community, Cresson began campaigning against Christian missionaries who were seeking to harass the Jews into converting. He wrote pamphlets and articles in Leeser鈥檚 The Occident newspaper in support of the Jews, signing them under the pseudonym 鈥淢ichael Boaz Israel.鈥� He then converted to Judaism, took on his pseudonym as his actual name, and explained his decision in his 1848 book, “The Key of David: David the True Messiah.” In it, he wrote: 鈥淚 remained in Jerusalem in my former faith until the 28th day of March, 1848 when I became fully satisfied that I could never obtain Strength and Rest, but by doing as Ruth did, and saying to her Mother-in-Law, or Naomi 鈥楨ntreat me not to leave thee for whither thou goest I will go鈥欌�� In short, upon the 28th day of March, 1848, I was circumcised, entered the Holy Covenant and became a Jew.鈥�
This was a bridge too far for Cresson鈥檚 family. When he returned to settle his affairs back home in 1848, his wife (who had converted to Episcopalianism in the meantime), brother, son and son-in-law tried to seize his estate and have him declared insane due to his conversion from Christianity to Judaism. Included in their accusations was that he planned to rebuild the Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah. Initially convicted, Cresson appealed in a trial that received national coverage.
As Stuart Schoffman documents in a 2004 article, Cresson鈥檚 attorney, General Horatio Hubbell Jr., 鈥渨as a distinguished veteran of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, a poet and lyricist, and coauthor of a proposal, submitted to an unreceptive Congress in January 1849, to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable connecting America and Europe. The thrust of Hubbell鈥檚 argument was that religious enthusiasm, however unconventional, was in no way tantamount to insanity, and that to convict Cresson because he had become a Jew was a disgraceful display of religious prejudice. Hubbell cited St. Paul on tolerance (Rom. 14), and Thomas Jefferson on pluralism: 鈥榌I]t is immaterial, as Mr. Jefferson observed, whether a man worships one god or 20, as long as he fulfills the duties and executes the obligations demanded of a citizen.鈥� His client鈥檚 accusers, declared Hubbell, were 鈥榬elentless persecutors, who like the Inquisitors of Spain, would gloat with malignant vengeance over their immolated victim.鈥欌��
Cresson, citing the biblical story of Purim, decried his brother as the 鈥淕REAT 鈥楬AMAN鈥� in my case,鈥欌�� and denounced the 鈥樷�榳icked design,鈥欌�� of his family 鈥渢o take all my property from me.鈥�
The proceedings, like its subject, were colorful. Hubbell gathered 73 witnesses, nearly half of them Jewish, to testify to Cresson鈥檚 sanity. Posthumously, Mordecai Manuel Noah was one of them. Cresson had written to Noah from Jerusalem, in 1847, about the messianic significance of the Mexican War. Noah, shortly before he died in March of 1851, penned a letter that attested to Cresson鈥檚 soundness of mind. Also in support of Cresson鈥檚 case was an amateur naturalist named Peter Browne. He, utilizing the science of his day, attempted to prove to the jury that Cresson was not crazy by comparing specimens of Cresson鈥檚 hair roots to those from his catalog of specimens he obtained at a Virginia insane asylum.
Menachem Levine has noted that while 鈥渘o one denied Cresson鈥檚 reputation as 鈥榓 strange bird鈥� (in the words of one correspondent), the leaders of the nation鈥檚 small Jewish community testified on his behalf, resisting the notion that conversion to Judaism in any way constituted natural proof of insanity.鈥� Hubbell鈥檚 鈥渃losing statement ended with a dramatic denunciation of the attempt to discredit an unconventional thinker based on his religious ideas alone. 鈥楾he only charge left with which to accuse my client,鈥� he thundered, 鈥榠s that he became a Jew!鈥欌��
Cresson won his case, divorced his wife, and headed back to the Holy Land, leaving most of his property to his family, because why not.听
In the fall of 1852, as Sir Moses Montefiore and the American businessman and philanthropist Judah Touro were undergoing a similar effort, Cresson proclaimed his plan to establish an agricultural colony in Emek Refaim (which he, alas, was unable to raise funds for).
Cresson married a Sephardic woman named Rachel Moleano and had two children, David Ben-Zion and Abigail Ruth, who both passed away young. He continued to write occasional dispatches for Isaac Leeser鈥檚 Occident, and lived out his days as a Sephardic Jew in Jerusalem, palling around with the future Sephardic chief rabbi, Harav Yaakov Shaul Elyashar. He died in 1860.
Melville scholars credit Cresson as the model for Nathan, a central character of “Clarel,” what Schoffman called 鈥淢elville鈥檚 vast (150 cantos, almost 18,000 lines), impenetrable, and perennially unpopular poem of the Holy Land which he published in 1876,鈥� that sits alongside Twain鈥檚 “The Innocents Abroad” 鈥渁s texts that both illuminate and subvert the self-identification of Americans as the 鈥樷�橬ew Israel,鈥� a 鈥榗ovenantal鈥� people authorized by God.鈥� In 1856, Melville had met Cresson, and after hearing his aspirations for Israel鈥檚 national revival, thought them a waste of time. 鈥淭he idea of making farmers of the Jews is vain,鈥� Melville wrote. 鈥淚n the first place, Judea is a desert, with few exceptions. In the second place, the Jews hate farming 鈥� and besides the number of Jews in Palestine is comparatively small. And how are the hosts of them scattered in other lands to be brought here? Only by a miracle.鈥�
All this is to say that Warder Cresson鈥檚 wondrous story is an amalgam of the countless characters, Jewish, Christian and other, that have been drawn to the Holy Land from the Land of the Covenant, as Israelis call the U.S. His psyche was an internal swirling of competing theological claims and communities, somehow rolled into one, that had come out Jewish 鈥� full of hope for the improbable, which somehow, eventually, actually became reality.
Schoffman鈥檚 detailed academic study concludes with a resonant consideration of Cresson as a pioneer. 鈥淚t may be impossible to prove that he was the first American oleh to Eretz Israel,鈥� he writes, 鈥渂ut I will continue to salute him as the great trailblazer, the ur-meshuggener who gave up the 鈥榞reat and precious privileges鈥� of the Old Country for the manifold challenges, spiritual and material, of Jerusalem. His divine madness continues to afflict many of us 鈥楢nglo-Saxons鈥� who frequent the avenue called Emek Refaim, shopping for Cheerios in thickly accented Hebrew, agonizing about our collective future over cappuccino. Here, among friends, Warder Cresson is a most honored ghost.鈥�
As an oleh myself, living just a short train ride from Jerusalem and struggling to order groceries in the local language, call me crazy, but I鈥檓 happy to have Cresson鈥檚 specter by my side.听
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.鈥檚 Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include the newly released “Jewish Roots of American Liberty,” “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”
