 Those writing on Jewish history were reluctant to glorify a slaveowner , and reacted to Benjamin 's story with " embarrassed dismay " . This was especially so in the two generations following 1865 , when the question of the civil war remained an active issue in American politics . It was not until the 1930s that Benjamin began to be mentioned as a significant figure in the history of the United States , and in the chronicle of the Jews there . Nevertheless , Tom Mountain , in his 2009 article on Benjamin , points out that Benjamin was respected in the South as a leader of the rebel cause for a century after the Civil War , and that Southern schoolchildren who could not name the current Secretary of State in Washington knew about Benjamin . Reform Rabbi Daniel Polish noted in 1988 that Benjamin " represent [ ed ] a significant dilemma [ in ] my years growing up as a Jew both proud of his people and with an intense commitment to the ideals of liberalism and human solidarity that I found embodied in the civil rights movement . " 
