Simon Wolf: the first Jewish diplomatic envoy to Egypt since the Exodus

Simon Wolf was one of the most prominent American Jews in the 19th century, yet he is little known today. 

Wolf was acquaintances and friends with presidents from Buchanan through Woodrow Wilson. He wrote a book on the influence of Jews through history. He was involved in Jewish charities and was president of B'nai Brith for two years. He documented the Jewish soldiers of the Civil War. He held prominent positions in Washington. He wrote biographies of American Jews Mordecai Manuel Noah and Uriah Levy.  And he had some bizarre connections to the Lincoln assassination:

Wolf was meant to be at Ford’s Theatre on the night of Lincoln’s assassination, but because of an illness in the family, he was not in attendance. More remarkably, he spent the afternoon of the assassination with an acquaintance he met in Cleveland: John Wilkes Booth. According to Wolf, Booth invited him for drinks at the Metropolitan Hotel in Washington; he had just been rejected by a senator’s daughter for the third time and needed some company.

Wolf’s personal experience surrounding the Lincoln assassination was even more bizarre: owing to a striking resemblance between himself and Booth, Wolf dared not leave his apartment until after Booth’s arrest. Lest one think his caution was overblown, Wolf claimed that he was actually asked by the painter Theodor Kaufmann to sit as Booth for his “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.”

Altogether, he should be far better known than he is.  I only found one biography, from 1967.

One of the most incredible things about his life is that he was appointed to be the United States' diplomatic envoy to Egypt by President Garfield, the day before Garfield was fatally shot.

From The Critic and Record (Washington, DC), Oct 24, 1881:

The newsworthiness of his appointment was emphasized in this article (Times-Pacayune, December 5, 1881) which contrasts his appointment and honor in Egypt to age-old Muslim antisemitism:

Although he held the position of consul for only a year, Wolf made a very positive impression. American missionaries who were against his appointment ended up praising him as the best consul they ever had, and this description of him by the Egyptian army surgeon general is as much of a kiddush Hashem as one is likely to see:

His book on the presidents he'd known has lots of anecdotes and Judaism is prominent in many of them. Here's one short story:

Simon Wolf deserves to be far better known than he is.

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