One of his official acts as Consul deserves special mention. The war between the United States and England was still raging, when one day an American privateer came into the harbor of Tunis with three English East Indiamen loaded with valuable cargoes as prizes. The prizes and cargoes were turned over to the American Consul to sell at auction. The British Minister protested against such sale on the ground of a clause in the treaty with England which provided that no Christian power should sell a British prize or its cargo in an Algerian port. Noah admitted the bona fides of the stipulation, but contended that under proper interpretation of international law the United States could not be held to be a Christian nation within the meaning of the treaty and hence was excepted from the inhibition. To prove his contention he exhibited the Constitution of the United States with its provisions against sectarianism and religious tests, and finally cited the Joel Barlow Treaty with Turkey of 1808, ratified by the United States Senate, which declared that the United States made no objections to Mussulmen because of their religion and that they are entitled to and should receive all the privileges of citizens of the most favored nations. This argument was sustained by the Bey and the prizes were accordingly sold in Tunis. Noah’s contention thus became established as a principle of international law which has never since been challenged. It was perhaps this stand taken by Noah in declaring the American nation to be non-Christian which convinced the government at home that his faith was “an obstacle to the exercise of his consular functions.”
On his return to America Noah settled in New York (1816), where he resided for the rest of his life in the enjoyment of many honors and great popularity. He was successively the editor of the “National Advocate,” “New York Enquirer,” “Evening Star,” “Commercial Advertiser,” “Union” and “Times and Messenger.” In 1819 he published in New York his “Travels in England, France, Spain and the Barbary States” in which he described his experiences abroad, the services he had rendered to his government in Tunis and the manner in which he was requited. His occupation as a journalist, which brought him into frequent connection with the theatre, led him to return to dramatic authorship, and he was reputed to be one of the most popular American playwrights of his day. Most of his plays were based on American history, but some of them dealt with other themes, like his successful melodrama “Yousef Carmatti, or The Siege of Tripoli.”
He also took an active part in politics, and was appointed High Sheriff of New York in 1822; but when the office was made elective a short time afterwards he was defeated after an exciting campaign. He was a supporter of General Jackson, and was later appointed by him Surveyor of the Port of New York.
But during all these varied activities he never forgot, as he was indeed seldom permitted to forget, that he was a Jew. He had strong convictions on the subject of Jewish nationality and devoted considerable attention to the Jewish question in general. Finally, in 1825, he turned to his long cherished scheme of the restoration of the Jews to their past glory as a nation. For this purpose he acquired, with the aid of some of his friends, an island thirteen miles in length and about five miles broad, called Grand Island, in the Niagara River, opposite Tonawanda, not far from Buffalo, N. Y., and issued a proclamation to the Jews of the world, inviting them to come and settle in the place, which he named “Ararat, a City of Refuge for the Jews.”
The plan had its practical side and attracted considerable attention. Noah was at that time perhaps the most distinguished Jewish resident in America, and could by no means be considered a visionary. The tract was chosen with particular reference to its promising commercial prospects, being close to the Great Lakes and opposite to the newly constructed Erie Canal; and Noah deemed it “pre-eminently calculated to become in time the greatest trading and commercial depot in the new and better world.” After heralding this project for some time in his own newspapers and in the press, religious and secular, generally, Noah selected September 2, 1825, as the date for laying the foundation stone of the new city. Impressive ceremonies, ushered in by the firing of cannon, were held, and participated in by state and federal officials, Christian clergymen, and even American Indians, whom Noah identified as the “lost tribes” of Israel, and who were also to find refuge in this new “Ararat.”
It was found on that day that there were not boats enough in Buffalo to carry to Grand Island all who wished to go there, and the celebration, in consequence, took place in Buffalo. A procession, headed by a band of music, was formed, composed of military companies and several Masonic bodies in full regalia, after which came Noah, as Governor and Judge of Israel, wearing a judicial robe of crimson silk trimmed with ermine, followed by fraternal officers and dignitaries. After marching through the principal streets of Buffalo, the procession entered the Episcopal Church, where exercises, including a long oration by Noah, were held; the close of the ceremonies being announced by a salvo of twenty-four guns.
The celebration in Buffalo was the beginning and the end of the scheme. There was no response to the proclamation, the city was never built, and the monument of brick and wood which was erected upon the island on the site of the contemplated town fell to pieces, and in the course of time wholly disappeared. The only relic of the enterprise is the foundation stone of the proposed city, which is preserved in the rooms of the Buffalo Historical Society, with the inscription of 1825 still legible.
Noah’s plan was to establish “Ararat” as a merely temporary city of refuge for the Jews, until in the fulness of time a Palestinian restoration could be effected. The failure of this project of a “temporary asylum” did not weaken his belief in the ultimate redemption of the Jews and their return to the Holy Land. Nearly twenty years after the unsuccessful attempt to concentrate the Jews on Grand Island, Noah delivered the greatest oration of his life, “A Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews,” which was soon afterwards published in book form (New York, 1844), in which he urged the return to Palestine as the only solution of the Jewish question, which had become acute in Europe in the troublesome times preceding the upheavals of 1848.
Noah resigned the office of Surveyor of the Port of New York in 1833, after having held it about four years. After eight years of intense journalistic and political activity, he was, in 1841, appointed by Governor Seward an Associate Judge of the New York Court of Sessions. He had no sooner commenced to discharge his judicial duties than James Gordon Bennett, in the “New York Herald,” began to assail and ridicule him. Noah himself made no complaint, but others took up the defence of the court’s dignity and Bennett was indicted for libel. Noah himself was not anxious to have the case prosecuted, asserting that the attack on him was the result of an old editorial quarrel, in which he had been to a considerable degree the aggressor. Bennett came off with a small pecuniary fine. Noah shortly afterwards resigned from the bench, to avoid sitting upon the trial for forgery of a certain member of Congress whom he had known from boyhood.
He took an active part in Jewish communal affairs of New York City, and was in 1842 elected president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society. He was also president of the Jewish Charity Organization of New York, and remained at its head when it was merged into a B’nai B’rith lodge. Among his works of Jewish interest deserves also to be mentioned a translation of the “Book of Jashar,” which he published in 1840.