MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH

• Born: July 14, 1785
• Died: March 22, 1851
• Nationality:
• Profession: Diplomat, Journalist, Playwright

Mordecai Manuel Noah was an American sheriff, playwright, diplomat, journalist, and utopian. He was born in a family of Portuguese Sephardic ancestry. He was the most important Jewish lay leader in New York in the early 19th century, and the first Jew born in the United States to reach national prominence. His negative reviews of black plays produced and hosted by William Brown at the African Grove have caused African-American studies and drama scholars to name Noah as the author of typical black archetypes employed in minstrel shows.