Harvard, Slavery, and Judaism

The first Jew at Harvard was a slaveholder. That's the bombshell, so far as I can tell, buried in the appendix of the new report "Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery," released by the university this week. The report's "list of human beings enslaved by prominent Harvard affiliates" includes the "enslaved persons" Cuffy and Cicely, owned by Judah Monis. Monis lived from 1683 to 1764 and was an instructor in Hebrew at Harvard College from 1722 to 1760. In researching this article, I discovered a third possible slave, "my Negro child Moreah," mentioned in Monis's 1760 will.